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ROSICRUCIANS 

SIXTH EDITION. 




By HARGRAVE JENNINGS 

AUTHOR OF * THE INDIAN RELIGION; OR, RESULTS OF THE MYSTERIOUS 
BUDDHISM'; 'PHALLICISM " J 'ONE OF THE THIRTY *, ETC. ETC 

SHustrateb bp Htptoarbs of ^fjrcc C^unbreb Cngrabins* 
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LONDON 

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED 

NEW YORK : E. P. DUTTON & CO 



Vnto the very points and priekes, here are to be found great misteries. 

— Nicholas Flamtnel, 1399. 

Quod sit CasteUum in quo Fratres degunt? Quinara et quales ipsi 
sint ? Cur, inter alia nomina, appelletur Fratres ? cur Crucis ? cur 
RoSiECRUCis? Gassendus, 1630. 

Quod tanto impendio absconditur, etiam solummodo demonstrare, 
destruere est. — Tertullian. 



Preface to the Third Edition 



The words ' Third Edition ' to a work of this character, 
which, it will readily be confessed, prefers claims to 
being quite sui generis, excite mixed feelings on the 
part of its Authors. 

The present edition has been carefully revised, at 
the same time that it has been largely extended. It 
comprises, now, Two Volumes. The addition of 
new engravings — singularly suggestive, prepared with 
great care, presenting very antique and authentic 
claims — speaks for value. 

The Authors can refer with pride to the numerous 
letters which reach them, if pride, or even particular 
gratification (according to ordinary ideas), could ac- 
tuate in the statement of the fact. This is a serious 
treatise upon the ' Rosicrucians \ Letters expressing 
great interest, some anonymous, some with names, 
addressed from all parts — from Germany, France, 
Spain, the West Indies ; from India, Italy, and Den- 
mark, and from remote corners in our own country — 
these have multiplied since the work was first pub- 
lished. America has displayed unbounded curiosity. 
To all these communications, with a few exceptions, 
no answers have been (nor could be) returned. The 
volumes themselves must be read with attention, or 
nothing is effected. The book must be its own inter- 
preter, if interpretation is sought. But interpretation 
does not apply in this instance. 

With one word we shall conclude. The Authors 

V 



vi PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 

of The Rosicrucians would quietly warn (for to do 
more would imply a greater attention than is due) 
against all attempts in books, or in print or otherwise, 
to subscribe with ' letters ' or any addition (or affec- 
tation), signifying a supposed personal connexion with 
the real f Rosicrucians \ These haughty Philosophers 
forbade disclosure — this, of either their real doctrines 
or intentions, or of their personality. 

We may most truly say, that in this work — as it 
now stands, care being taken to keep all reserves — 
will be found the best account of this illustrious and 
mysterious Fraternity. 

London : 
Januwu the Twenty-First, 
1887 



Preface to the Second Edition 



The Authors of this important Book — such must 
obviously be the fact of any work speaking with 
authority in regard of that extraordinary Brotherhood 
the ' Rosicrucians ' — feel assured that it will only be 
necessary to penetrate but to the extent of two or 
three pages therein, to secure vivid curiosity and 
attention. The Producers — particularly in the in- 
stance of this much enlarged Second Edition — are 
particularly desirous that no one shall identify them 
with, or consider them as maintaining personally, the 
strangely abstruse, and, in some instances, the start- 
lingly singular ideas of these Princes among the Mystics. 
We are — and desire to be viewed as — the Historians 
only of this renowned Body ; of whom it may most 
truly be asserted that no one can boast of having 
ever — really and in fact — seen or known in any age 
any supposed (or suspected) ' Member ' in the flesh. 
It is sufficient honour to offer as the medium only, 
or the Intermediaries to the reading- world — of this 
Illustrious Membership ; whose renown has filled, 
and whose mystical doctrines (assumed or supposed) 
have puzzled the ages : — in the intenser degree, still, 
in the present time ; as the inquisitive reception of 
the Authors' First Edition of The Rosicrucians abun- 
dantly proved. 

Dr. Ginsburg says of the Cabala, or Kabbalah (re- 
garding the mysteries of which the Rosicrucians 
claimed to be the only true exponents), that it is a 

vii 



viii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

system of religious philosophy, or more properly of 
theosophy, which has not only exercised, for hundreds 
of years, an extraordinary influence on the mental 
development of so shrewd a people as the Jews, but 
has captivated the minds of some of the greatest 
thinkers of Christendom in the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries. ' It — and all that refers to it ' — 
therefore claims the greatest attention of both the 
philosopher and the theologian. ' The thinkers of 
the past days, after restlessly searching for a scientific 
system which should disclose to them the " deepest 
depths " of the Divine Nature, and approve to the 
understanding the real tie which binds all things 
together, found the craving of their mind satisfied 
by this Theosophy.' 

We say enough in reference to the august possessors 
of this knowledge when we remind the reader that 
among those who knew how to wield (and to adapt) 
the stupendous acquisition to which they were sup- 
posed to have at last penetrated, were Raymond 
Lully, the celebrated scholastic, metaphysician, and 
chemist (died 13 15) ; John Reuchlin, the renowned 
scholar and reviver of oriental literature in Europe 
(born 1455, died 1522) ; John Picus di Mirandola, 
the famous philosopher and classical scholar (1463- 
1494) ; Cornelius Henry Agrippa, the distinguished 
philosopher, divine, and physician (1486-1535) ; John 
Baptist von Helmont, a remarkable chemist and 
physician (1577-1644) ; Dr. Henry More (1614-1687), 
and lastly and chiefly (in regard of whom this whole 
Book is but the translation and exposition of his 
highly-prized and very scarce works), our own country- 
man \ Robert Flood or Fludd (Robertus de Flucti- 

1 In regard to the value and rarity of Robert Fludd's books it 
may be mentioned that Isaac D' Israeli says that ' forty ' and 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 



ix 



bus) the famous physician and philosopher (1574- 
1637). 

HARGRAVE JENNINGS. 

London, April 6th, 1879. 

' seventy ' ' pounds ' were given for a ' single volume ' abroad in 
his time — such was the curiosity concerning them. At the pre- 
sent time the value of these books has greatly increased. Fludd's 
volumes, and any of the early editions of Jacob Bcehmen's books, 
are worth much money. Indeed they are so scarce as to be caught 
up everywhere when offered — especially when encountered by 
foreigners and Americans. 



Preface to the First Edition 



This book, which now leaves our hands, concentrates 
in a small compass the results of very considerable 
labour, and the diligent study of very many books 
in languages living and dead. It purports to be a 
history (for the first time treated seriously in Eng- 
lish) of the famous Order of the ' Rose-Cross or of 
the ' Rosicrucians \ No student of the occult philo- 
sophy need, however, fear that we shall not most 
carefully keep guard — standing sentry (so to speak) 
not only over this, which is, by far, the pre-eminent, 
but also over those other recondite systems which are 
connected with the illustrious Rosicrucians. 

An accomplished author of our own period has 
remarked that ' He who deals in the secrets of magic, 
or in the secrets of the human mind, is too often 
looked upon with jealous eyes by the world, which 
is no great conjuror.' 

How is it that, after centuries of doubt or denial — 
how happens it, in face of the reason that can make 
nothing of it, the common sense that rejects, and the 
science which can demonstrate it as impossible, the 
supernatural still has such vital hold in the human — 
not to say in the modern — mind ? How happens it 
that the most terrible fear is the fear of the invisible ? 
— this, too, when we are on all hands assured that 
the visible alone is that which we have to dread ! 
The ordinary reason exhorts us to dismiss our fears* 
That thing ' magic that superstition ' miracle is 

x 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xi 



now banished wholly from the beliefs of this clear- 
seeing, educated age. ' Miracle \ we are told, never 
had a place in the world — only in men's delusions. 
It is nothing more than a fancy. It never was any- 
thing more than a superstition arising from ignorance. 

What is fear ? It is a shrinking from possible 
harm, either to the body, or to that thing which we 
denominate the mind that is in us. The body shrinks 
with instinctive nervous alarm, like the sensitive leaf, 
when its easy, comfortable exercise or sensations are 
disturbed. 

Our book, inasmuch as it deals — or professes to 
deal — seriously with strange things and with deep 
mysteries, needs the means of interpretation in the 
full attention of the reader : otherwise, little will be 
made, or can come, of it. It is, in brief, a history of 
the alchemical philosophers, w T ritten with a serious 
explanatory purpose, and for the first time impartially 
stated since the days of James the First and Charles 
the First. This is really what the book pretends to 
be — and nothing more. It should be mentioned that 
the peculiar views and deductions to be found herein 
were hinted at as demonstrable for the first time by 
the same Author in the year 1858, when a work 
entitled Curious Things of the Outside World was 
produced. 

Let it be understood, however, that the Author 
distinctly excepts against being in any manner identi- 
fied with all the opinions, religious or otherwise, 
which are to be found in this book. .Some of them 
are, indeed, most extraordinary ; but, in order to do 
full justice to the speculations of the Hermetic Brethren, 
he has put forward their ideas with as much of their 
original force as he was able ; and, in some parts of 
his book, he believes he has urged them with such 
apparent warmth, that they will very likely seem to 



Xll 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 



have been his own most urgent convictions. As far 
as he can succeed in being so considered, the Author 
wishes to be regarded simply as the Historian of the 
Rosicrucians, or as an Essayist on their strange, 
mysterious beliefs. 

Whether he will succeed in engaging the attention 
of modern readers to a consideration of this time- 
honoured philosophy remains to be seen ; but this he 
is assured of, that the admiration of all students and 
reflective minds will be excited by the unrivalled 
powers of thinking of the Rosicrucians. The applicat- 
ion, proper or otherwise, of these powers is a matter 
altogether beside the present inquiry. 

The Author has chiefly chosen for exposition the 
Latin writings of the great English Rosicrucian, 
Robert Flood, or Fludd (Robertus de Fluctibus), who 
lived in the times of James the First and Charles the 
First. 

Our final remarks shall be those of a very famous 
Brother of the ' R.C. writing under the date of 
1653 : 'I will now cloze up saith he, ' with the 
doxology of a most excellent, renowned Philocryphus : 

Soli Deo Laus et Potentia ! 

Amen in Mercurio, qui pedibus licet carens decurrit aqua, et 
metallice universaliter operatur.' 

London, January 20th, 1870 



CONTENTS 



PART I 

CHAP. PAGE 

I : Critics of the Rosicrucians Criticized . i 

II : Singular Adventure in Staffordshire , 6 

III : Ever-burning Lamps . .... 13 

IV : Insufficiency of Worldly Objects . . 17 

V : The Hermetic Philosophers .... 24 

VI : An Historical Adventure .... 33 

VII : The Hermetic Brethren .... 38 

VIII : Mythic History of the Fleur-de-lis . . 45 

IX : Sacred Fire 63 

X: Fire-theosophy of the Persians ... 76 
XI : Ideas of the Rosicrucians as to the Character 

of Fire 86 

XII : Monuments Raised to Fire-worship in all 

Countries 98 

XIII : Druidical Stones and thetr Worship . . 115 
XIV : Inquiry as to the Possibility of Miracle . 131 
XV : Can Evidence be Depended upon ? Examina- 
tion of Hume's Reasoning . . . 137 
XVI : Footsteps of the Rosicrucians amidst Archi- 
tectural Objects 148 

XVII : The Round Towers of Ireland . . # 156 

xiii 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. P,AGE 

XVIII : Prismatic Investiture of the Microcosm . 162 
XIX : Cabalistic Interpretations by the Gnostics 167 
XX : Mystic Christian Figures and Talismans . 178 
XXI : The ' Rosy Cross ' in Indian, Egyptian, Greek, 

Roman, and Medieval Monuments . . 187 
XXII : Myth of the Scorpion, or the Snake, in its 

Many Disguises 195 

XXIII: Ominous Character of the Colour 'White* 

to English Royalty 199 

XXIV : The Beliefs of the Rosicrucians — Meaning 
of Lights and of Commemorative Flambeaux 
n all Worship . 209 
XXV : The Great Pyramid . . ... 225 



PART II 

I : History of the Tower or Steeple . . 233 
II : Presence of the Rosicrucians in Heathen and 

Christian Architecture .... 254 

III : The Rosicrucians amidst Ancient Mysteries. 
Their Traces Discoverable in the Orders 
of Knighthood . , . . # 263 

IV : Rosicrucianism in Strange Symbols . . 280 
V : Connexion between the Templars and Gnosti- 
cism . . . . . f . . 295 

VI : Strange Speculations of the Transcendenta- 

lists ........ 309 

VII : Rosicrucian Origin of the Order of the Gar- 
ter. Deductions, and Proofs, from His- 
torical Authorities ..... 314 



CONTENTS xv 

CHAP. PAGE 

VIII : Rosicrucian supposed Means of Magic through 

Signs, Sigils, and Figures .... 329 
IX : Astro-theosophical (Extra-natural) System of 

THE ROSICRUCIANS — THE ALCHEMIC MaGISTER- 

ium or * Stone ' . . . . . . 338 

X : Rosicrucian ' Celestial ' and ' Terrestrial ' 

(means of Intercommunication) . . 354 

XI : The Pre-Adamites. Profound Cabalistic or 

Rosicrucian Speculations .... 360 

XII : The Adapted Rosicrucian Contemplation. In- 
trusion of Sin. Ruins of the old Worlds 379 

XIII : Indian Mysterious Adoration of Forms. The 
Unity of the Mythologies found in the 
Bhuddistic and Mohammedan Temples . 390 

XIV : Doctrine and Rationale. The Embodied 
1 Children of the Elements \ both of 
Heathen and of Christian Periods . . 401 

XV : Robert Flood (Robertus de Fluctibus), the 

English Rosicrucian 408 

XVI : Notices of Ancient Authorities . . . 416 
XVII : Mysteries of the Ancients : the Ark of Noah 418 
XVIII : Cabalistic Illustrations. The San-greale, 

Greal, or Holy Greale .... 420 

XIX : The Round Table is the Rationale or Apotheo- 
sis of the Most Noble the Order of the 
Garter ....... 424 

XX : Remarks upon Two Curious Books . . 427 

XXI : Remarks Relating to the Great Mystic, Ro- 
bert - de Fluctibus ' ... . 429 
XXII : Alchemy. The Power of Producing Gold 
and Silver, Through Artificial means. 
Doctrine of the Rosicrucians . . . 432 



xvi 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAG 6 

XXIII : The Outline of the Cabala, or Kabbalah. 

Its Mystic Indications. The Purpose of 
the Great Architect of the Universe in the 
Sensible and Spiritual Worlds (Natural 
and Supernatural), and the Character of 
their Reciprocity, and Double working . 442 

XXIV : Cabalistic Profundites . . . .454 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



PART I 
CHAPTER THE FIRST 

CRITICS OF THE ROSICRUCIANS CRITICIZED 

That modern science, spite of its assumptions and 
of its intolerant dogmatism, is much at fault — nay, 
to a great extent a very vain thing — is a conclusion 
that often presents itself to the minds of thinking 
persons. Thus thoughtful people, who choose to 
separate themselves from the crowd, and who do 
not altogether give in with such edifying submission 
to the indoctrination of the scientific classes — not- 
withstanding that these latter have the support 
generally of that which, by a wide term, is called the 
' press ' in this country — quietly decline reliance on 
modern science. They see that there are numerous 
shortcomings of teachers in medicine, which fails 
frequently, though always with its answer — in theology, 
which chooses rather that men should sleep, though 
not the right sleep, than consider waking — nay, in 
all the branches of human knowledge ; the fashion 
in regard to which is to disparage the ancient schools 
of thought by exposing what are called their errors 
by the light of modern assumed infallible discovery. 
It never once occurs to these eager, conceited pro- 
fessors that they themselves may possibly have 
learned wrongly, that the old knowledge they decry 



2 



THE ROSICR UCIA NS 



is underrated because they do not understand it, and 
that, entirely because the light of the modern world 
is so brilliant in them, so dark to them, as eclipsed in 
this novel artificial light, is the older and better and 
truer sunshine nearer to the ancients : because time 
itself was newer to the old peoples of the world, and 
because the circumstances of the first making of time 
were more understood in the then first divine dis- 
closure, granting that time ever had a beginning, as 
man's reason insists it must. 

Shelley, the poet, who, if he had not been so great 
as a poet, would have been perhaps equally eminent 
as a metaphysician, that is, when age and experience 
had ripened and corrected his original brilliant crudi- 
ties of thought — used to declare that most men — at 
least, most thinking men — spend the latter half of 
their lives in unlearning the mistakes of the preceding 
half. This he declares to have been the fact in his 
own experience — which was, even for this test, a very 
brief one ; for Shelley was only twenty-nine when 
his lamentable death occurred. The early departure 
of three brilliant poetic spirits of our fathers' period, 
at the same time that it is very melancholy, is worthy 
of deep remark. Shelley was, as we have said, twenty- 
nine ; Byron was only thirty-six ; John Keats — in 
some respects the most poetically intense and abstract 
of the three — was only twenty-four. And in these 
short several lifetimes, measuring so few years, these 
distinguished persons had achieved that which re- 
sulted in the enrolment of their names in a nation's 
catalogue in a grand branch of human attainment. 
They live in lasting records, they grow in honour, 
and their names do not fade, as is the case with those 
reputations which have been unduly magnified, but 
which give way to time. Perhaps the lot of some 
contemporaneous accepted important, not to say 



ERRONEOUS JUDGMENTS 



3 



great, reputations will be diminution and disappear- 
ance. Time is not only an avenger, but a very j udicious 
corrector. 

We are so convinced of the irresistible dominancy, 
all the world over, of opinions, and of the dicta relative 
to this or that merit, or this or that truth, propounded 
by people with names and of influence in our good, 
readily believing England, and of the power of sup- 
posed authority in matters of taste and literary accept- 
ance, that we desire to warn querists against the 
statements about the fraternity — for it is not a body — 
of the Rosicrucians appearing in all the published 
accounts, whether of this country or abroad. We 
have examined all these supposed notices and ex- 
planations of who the Rosicrucians were in biographical 
works, in encyclopaedias and histories, and we find 
them all prejudiced and misrepresenting, really telling 
no truth, and only displaying a deplorable amount of 
mischievous ignorance. They are, besides, in the 
main copied from each other — which is notably the 
case with the early encyclopaedias. Old Fuller, who has 
some notices of Robert Flood, a famous English mem- 
ber of the order of Rosicrucians, fully admits his 
ignorance of whom the brotherhood comprised, and 
of their constitution or purpose. All generally received 
accounts, therefore, are wrong, principally for three 
reasons : first, through ignorance ; secondly, through 
prejudice ; thirdly, as instigated by distrust, dislike, 
and envy — for in criticism it is a dogma that the 
subject must be always under the critic, never that, 
by a chance, the subject may be above the critic — 
that is, above the critic's grasp and comprehension. 
But suppose the criticized choose to except to the 
ability of the critic in any way to judge of him ? 

From this obstinacy and conceit arise such under- 
rating and false comment as is implied in the following 



4 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



which is extracted from The Encyclopedia Britannica 
- -which account is copied again into several other 
encyclopaedias, and repeated into smaller works with 
pertinacious, with even malicious fidelity : 

' In fine, the Rosicrucians, and all their fanatical 
descendants, agree in proposing the most crude and 
incomprehensible notions and ideas m the most ob- 
scure, quaint, and unusual expressions.' — Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica : article ' Rosicrucians ' . 

During the age of James the First, Charles the 
First, even during the Protectorate, and again in 
the time of Charles the Second, the singular doctrines 
of the Rosicrucians attracted a large amount of attent- 
ion, and excited much keen controversy. Sundry 
replies or ' apologies ' appeared on the part of the 
Rosicrucians. Among them was a most able work 
published in Latin by Dr. Robert Flood, at Leyden, in 
1616. It was a small, closely printed, very learned 
octavo, entitled Apologia Compendiaria Fraternitatis 
de Rosea Cruce, etc., and abounds in* knowledge. It 
is an exceedingly rare work ; but there is a copy in 
the British Museum. All this long period was marked 
by considerable speculation regarding these Rosi- 
crucians. Pope's Rape of the Lock is founded upon 
some of their fanciful cabalistic ideas. The Spectator 
contains notices of the mystic society ; and, to prove 
the public curiosity concerning the Rosicrucians, and 
a strange incident, the particulars of which we are 
going to supply from the best sources now for the 
first time, we may state that there is included, in one 
number of Addison's elegant series of papers called 
The Spectator, a resumption of a notice, and some 
^fter-comment, upon the supposed discovery of the 
burial-place in England of one of these mighty men 
the Rocicrucians. The story is to the following pur- 
port, as nearly as it can be gathered. We have 



POPE'S RAPE OF THE LOCK 



5 



written much more fully of it from other means ; 
for The Spectator s account is very full of errors, and 
was evidently gained afar off, and merely from hearsay, 
as it were. It is, besides, poor and ineffective, gathered 
from no authority, and produced with no dramatic 
force ; for the life and the beliefs of the Rosicrucians 
w T ere very dramatic, at the same time that the latter 
were very true, although generally disbelieved. 




Delphic E 

(With the significant point in the centre) 



CHAPTER THE SECOND 



SINGULAR ADVENTURE IN STAFFORDSHIRE 

Dr. Plot, who was a very well-known and reliable 
man, and a painstaking antiquary and writer of 
natural history, in his History of Staffordshire, published 
by him in the time of Charles the Second, relates the 
following strange story : 

That a countryman was employed, at the close of a 
certain dull summer's day, in digging a trench in a 
field in a valley, round which the country rose into 
sombre, silent woods, vocal only with the quaint 
cries of the infrequent magpies. It was some little 
time after the sun had sunk, and the countryman 
was just about giving over his labour fQr the day. Dr. 
Plot says that, in one or two of the last languid strokes 
of his pick, the rustic came upon something stony 
and hard, which struck a spark, clearly visible in the 
increasing gloom. At this surprise he resumed his 
labour, and, curiously enough, found a large, flat 
stone in the centre of the field. This field was far 
away from any of the farms or 1 cotes as they were 
called in those days, with which the now almost 
twilight country was sparingly dotted. In a short time 
he cleared the stone free of the grass and weeds which 
had grown over it ; and it proved to be a large, oblong 
slab, with an immense iron ring fixed at one end in a 
socket. For half-an-hour the countryman essayed to 
stir this stone in vain. At last he bethought himself 
of some yards of rope which he had lying near amongst 
his tools ; and these he converted, being an ingenious, 



THE UNDERGROUND CHAMBER 



7 



inquisitive, inventive man, into a tackle — by means of 
which, and by passing the sling round a bent tree in 
a line with the axis of the stone, he contrived, in the 
last of the light, and with much expenditure of toil, 
to raise it. And then, greatly to his surprise, he saw 
a large, deep, hollow place, buried in darkness, which, 
when his eyes grew accustomed a little to it, he dis- 
covered was the top-story to a stone staircase, seem- 
ingly of extraordinary depth, for he saw nothing 
below. The country fellow had not the slightest idea 
of where this could lead to ; but being a man, though 
a rustic and a clown, of courage, and most probably 
urged by his idea that the staircase led to some secret 
repository where treasure lay buried, he descended 
the first few steps cautiously, and tried to peer in 
vain down into the darkness. This seemed impenet- 
rable ; but there was some object at a vast, cold 
distance below. Looking up to the fresh air and 
seeing the star Venus — the evening star — shining 
suddenly like a planet, in encouraging, unexpected 
brilliancy, although the sky had still some beautiful 
placid sunset light in it, the puzzled man left the 
upper ground, and descended silently a fair, though a 
somewhat broken staircase. Here, at an angle, as 
near as he could judge, of a hundred feet underground^ 
he came upon a square landing-place, with a niche 
in the wall ; and then he saw a further long staircase, 
descending at right angles to the first staircase, and 
still going down into deep, cold darkness. The man 
cast a glance upward, as if questioning the small 
segment of light from the upper world which shot 
down, whether he should continue his search or desist 
and return. All was stillest of the still about him ; 
but he saw no reason particularly to fear. So, imagin- 
ing that he would in some way soon penetrate the 
mystery, and feeling in the darkness by his hands 



8 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

upon the wall, and by his toes to make sure first on each 
step, he resolutely descended ; and he deliberately 
counted two hundred and twenty steps. lie felt 
no difficulty in his breathing, except a certain sort 
of aromatic smell of distant incense, that he thought 
Egyptian, coming up now and then from below, as 
if from another, though a subterranean, world. ' Poss- 
ibly thought he — for he had heard of them — ' the 
world of the mining gnomes : and I am breaking 
in upon their secrets, which is forbidden for man \ 
The rustic, though courageous, was superstitious. 

But, notwithstanding some fits of fear, the country- 
man went on, and at a much lower angle he met a 
wall in his face ; but, making a turn to the right, with 
singular credit to his nerves, the explorer went down 
again. And now he saw at a vast distance below, at the 
foot of a deeper staircase of stone, a steady though 
a pale light. This was shining up as if from a star, 
or coming from the centre of the earth. Cheered 
by this light, though absolutely astounded, nay, 
frightened, at thus discovering light, whether natural 
or artificial, in the deep bowels of the earth, the man 
again descended, meeting a thin, humid trail of light, 
as it looked, mounting up the centre line of the shin- 
ing though mouldering old stairs, which apparently 
had not been pressed by a foot for very many ages. 
He thought now, although it was probably only the 
wind in some hidden recess, or creeping down some 
gallery, that he heard a murmur overhead, as if of 
the uncertain rumble of horses and of heavy waggons 
or lumbering wains. Next moment, all subsided 
into total stillness ; but the distant light seemed 
to flicker, as if in recognition or answer to the strange 
sound. Half-a-dozen times he paused, and turned 
as if he would remount — almost flee for his life up- 
ward, as he thought ; for this might be the secret 



CRYPTIC MYSTERIES 



9 



haunt of robbers, or the dreadful abode of evil spirits. 
What if, in a few moments, he should come upon 
some scene to affright, or alight in the midst of des- 
perate ruffians, or be caught by murderers ! He 
listened eagerly. He now almost bitterly repented 
his descent. Still the light streamed at a distance ; 
but still there was no sound to interpret the meaning 
of the light, or to display the character of this mys- 
terious place, in which the countryman found himself 
entangled hopelessly like a knight of romance in an 
enchanted world. 

The discoverer by his time stood still with fear. 
But at last, summoning courage, and recommending 
himself devoutly to God, he determined to complete 
his discovery. Above, he had been working in no 
strange place ; the field he well knew, the woods 
were very familiar to him, and his own hamlet and his 
wife and family were only a few miles distant. He now 
hastily, and more in fear than through courage, noisily 
with his feet descended the remainder of the stairs ; 
and the light grew brighter and brighter as he ap- 
proached, until at last, at another turn, he came upon 
a square chamber, built up of large hewn ancient 
stones. He stopped, silent and awe-struck. Here 
was a flagged pavement and a somewhat lofty roof, 
gathering up into a centre, in the groins of which 
was a rose, carved exquisitely in some dark stone 
or in marble. But what was this poor man's fright 
when, making another sudden turn, from between 
the jambs, and from under the large archivolt of a 
Gothic stone portal, light streamed out over him 
with inexpressible brilliancy, shining over everything, 
and lighting up the place with brilliant radiance, 
like an intense golden sunset. He started back. 
Then his limbs shook and bent under him as he gazed 
with terror at the figure of a man, whose face was 



10 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



hidden, as he sat in a studious attitude in a stone 
chair, reading in a great book, with his elbow resting 
on a table like a rectangular altar, in the light of a 
large, ancient iron lamp, suspended by a thick chain 
to the middle of the roof. A cry of alarm, which he 
could not suppress, escaped from the scared discoverer, 
who involuntarily advanced one pace, beside himself 
with terror. He was now within the illuminated cham- 
ber. As his foot fell on the stone, the figure started 
bolt upright from his seated position, as if in awful 
astonishment . He erected his hooded head, and showed 
himself as if in anger about to question the intruder. 
Doubtful if what he saw were a reality, or whether 
he was not in some terrific dream, the countryman 
advanced, without being aware of what he was doing, 
another audacious step. The hooded man now thrust 
out a long arm, as if in warning ; and in a moment 
the discoverer perceived that this hand was armed 
with an iron baton, and that he pointed it as if tre- 
mendously to forbid further approach. Now, how- 
ever, the poor man, not being in a condition either 
to reason or to restrain himself, with a cry, and in a 
passion of fear, took a third fatal step ; and as his 
foot descended on the groaning stone, which seemed 
to give way for a moment under him, the dreadful 
man, or image, raised his arm high like a machine, 
and with his truncheon struck a prodigious blow 
upon the lamp, shattering it into a thousand pieces, 
and leaving the place in utter darkness. 

This was the end of this terrifying adventure. 
There was total silence now, far and near. Only a 
long, low roll of thunder, or a noise similar to thunder, 
seemed to begin from a distance, and then to move 
with snatches, as if making turns ; and it then rumbled 
sullenly to sleep, as if through unknown, inaccessible 
passages. What these were — if any passages — no- 



ROSICRUCIUS 



ii 



body ever found out. It was only suspected that 
this hidden place referred in some way to the Rosicru- 
cians, and that the mysterious people of that famous 
order had there concealed some of their scientific 
secrets. The place in Staffordshire became after- 
wards famed as the sepulchre of one of the brother- 
hood, whom, for want of a more distinct recognition 
or name, the people chose to call 1 Rosicrucius in 
general reference to his order ; and from the circum- 
stance of the lamp, and its sudden extinguishment by 
the figure that started up, it was supposed that some 
Rosicrucian had determined to inform posterity that 
he had penetrated to the secret of the making of the 
ever-burning lamps of the ancients—though, at the 
moment that he displayed his knowledge, he took 
effectual means that no one should reap any advan- 
tage from it. 

The Spectator, in No. 379, for Thursday, May 15th, 
1712, under the signature of ' X which is understood 
to be that of Budgell, has the following account of 
that which is chosen there to be designated ' Rosicru- 
cius's Sepulchre ' : 

' Rosicrucius, say his disciples, made use of this 
method to show the world that he had re-invented the 
ever-burning lamps of the ancients, though he was 
resolved no one should reap any advantage from the 
discovery \ 

We have chosen the above story as the introduction 
to our curious history. 

Christian Rosencreutz died in 1484. To account 
for Rosicrucianism not having been heard of until 
1604, it has been asserted that this supposed first 
founder of Rosicrucianism bound his disciples .not to 
reveal any of his doctrines until a period of one hun- 
dred and twenty years after his death. 

The ancient Romans are said to have preserved 



12 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



lights in their sepulchres many ages by the oiliness 
vf gold (here steps in the art of the Rosicrucians), 
resolved by hermetic methods into a liquid substance ; 
and it is reported that at the dissolution of monaster- 
ies, in the time of Henry the Eighth, there was a 
lamp found that had then burned in a tomb from 
about three hundred years after Christ — nearly twelve 
hundred years. Two of these subterranean lamps are 
to be seen in the Museum of Rarities at Leyden, in 
Holland. One of these lamps, in the Papacy of Paul 
the Third, was found in the Tomb of Tullia (so named), 
Cicero's daughter, which had been shut up fifteen 
hundred and fifty years (Second edition of N. Bailey's 
<&i\6\oyos y 1731). 



CHAPTER THE THIRD 

EVER-BURNING LAMPS 

In the Papacy of Paul the Third, in the Appian Way, 
where abundance of the chief heathens of old were 
laid, a sepulchre was opened, where was found the 
entire body of a fair virgin swimming in a wonderful 
juice, which kept it from putrefaction so well, that 
the face seemed no way impaired, but lively and 
very beautiful. Her hair was yellow, tied up arti- 
ficially, and kept together with a golden circlet or 
band. Under her feet burnt lamps, the light of which 
was extinguished at the opening of the sepulchre. 
By some inscriptions found about the tomb it appeared 
that she must have lain there fifteen hundred years. 
Who she was was never known, although many con- 
cluded her to be ' Tulliola ', the daughter of Cicero. 
This discovery has been reported from various hands. 

Cedrenus makes mention of a lamp, which, together 
with an image of Christ, was found at Edessa in the 
reign of Justinian the Emperor. It was set over a 
certain gate there, and elaborately enclosed and 
shut out from the air. This lamp, as appeared from 
the date attached to it, was lighted soon after Christ 
was crucified. It was found burning — as in fact it 
had done for five hundred years — by the soldiers of 
Cosroes, king of Persia ; by whom, at this strange 
discovery and plunder, the oil was taken out and cast 
into the fire. As it is reported, this wild act occas- 
ioned such a plague as brought death upon num- 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



bers of the forces of Cosroes, sufficiently punished 
for their sacrilegious mischief. 

At the demolition of our monasteries here in Eng- 
land, there was found in the monument which was 
supposed to be that of Constantius Chlorus, father 
to the great Constantine, a burning lamp, which was 
thought to have continued burning there ever since 
his burial, which was about three hundred years 
after Christ. The ancient Romans are said to have 
been able to maintain lights in their sepulchres for 
an indefinite time, by an essence or oil obtained from 
liquid gold ; which was an achievement assumed 
to have been only known [to the Rosicrucians, who 
boasted this among some other of their stupendous 
arts. 

Baptista Porta, in his treatise on Natural Magic 
relates that about the year 1550, in the island of Nesis, 
in the Bay of Naples, a marble sepulchre of a certain 
Roman was discovered ; upon the opening of which 
a burning lamp, affording a powerful illumination, 
was discovered. The light of this lamp paled on 
the admission of the air, and it was speedily extin- 
guished. It appeared from undoubted tokens in 
the mode of inscription that this wonderful lamp 
had been placed in its present receptacle before the 
advent of the Saviour. Those who saw the lamp 
declared that the effulgence was of the most dazzling 
character ; that the light did not flicker or change, 
but burnt marvellously steadily. 

A most celebrated lamp, called that of Pallas, the 
son of Evander, who, as Virgil relates, was killed by 
Turnus (the account will be found in the tenth book 
of Virgil's Mneid), is that reported as discovered not 
far from Rome, as far forward in time as the year 
1401. It is related that a countryman was digging 
in the neighbourhood, and that delving deeper than 



PERPETUAL LAMPS 



usual, he came upon a stone sepulchre, wherein there 
was discovered the body of a man of extraordinary 
size, as perfect and natural as if recently interred. 
Above the head of the deceased there was found a 
lamp, burning with the supposed fabulous perpetual 
fire. Neither wind nor water, nor any other super- 
induced means, could extinguish it ; but the flame 
was mastered eventually by the lamp being bored 
at bottom and broken by the astonished investigators 
of this consummate light. The man enclosed in this 
monument had a large wound in the breast. That 
this was the body of Pallas was evident from the in- 
scription on the tomb, which was as follows : 

Pallas, Evander's son, whom Turnus' spear 
In battle slew, of mighty bulk, lies here. 

A very remarkable lamp was discovered about the 
year 1500 near Ateste, a town belonging to Padua, 
in Italy, by a rustic who in his explorations in a field 
came upon an urn containing another urn, in which 
last was deposited one of these much-doubted miracul- 
ous lamps. The aliment of this strange lamp appeared 
to be a very exquisite crystal liquor, by the ever- 
during powers of which the lamp must have con- 
tinued to shine for upwards of fifteen hundred years. 
And unless this lamp had been so suddenly exposed 
to the action of the air, it is supposed that it might 
have continued to burn for any time. This lamp, 
endowed with such unbelievable powers, was dis- 
covered to be the workmanship of an unknown contriver 
named Maximus Olibius, who must have possessed 
the profoundest skill in chemical art. On the greater 
urn some lines were inscribed in Latin, recording 
the perpetuation of this wonderful secret of the prep- 
aration and the starting of these (almost) immortal 
flames. 



i6 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



St. Austin mentions a lamp that was found in a 
temple dedicated to Venus, which, notwithstand- 
ing that it was exposed to the open weather, could 
never be consumed or extinguished. 

Ludovicus Vives, his commentator, in a supple- 
mentary mention of ever-burning lamps, cites an 
instance of another similar lamp which was discovered 
a little before his time, and which was considered to 
have been burning for a thousand and fifty years. 

It is supposed that the perpetuity of the flame of 
these wonderful lamps was owing to the consummate 
tenacity of the unctuous matter with which the light 
was maintained ; and that the balance was so exqui- 
sitely perfect between the feeding material and the 
strength of the flame, and so proportioned for ever- 
lasting provision and expenditure, that, like the 
radical moisture and natural heat in animals, neither 
of them could ever unduly prevail. Licetus, who 
has advanced this opinion, observes that in order to 
effectually prevent interference with this balance, 
the ancients hid these lamps in caverns or in enclosed 
monuments. Hence it happened that on opening 
these tombs and secret places, the admission of fresh 
air to the lamps destroyed the fine equilibrium and 
stopped the life (as it were) of the lamp, similarly as 
a blow or a shock stops a watch, in jarring the match- 
less mechanism. 



A 



CHAPTER THE FOURTH 

INSUFFICIENCY OF WORLDLY OBJECTS 

Ir is a constant and very plausible charge offered by 
the general world against the possession of the power 
of gold-making as claimed by the alchemists, who 
were the practical branch of the Rosicrucians, that 
if such supposed power were in their hands, they 
would infallibly use it, and that quickly enough ; for 
the acquisition of riches and power, say they, is the 
desire of all men. But this idea proceeds from an 
ignorance of the character and inclinations of real 
philosophers, and results from an inveterate prejudice 
relative to them. Before we judge of these, let us 
acquire a knowledge of the natural inclinations of 
very deeply learned men. Philosophers, when they 
have attained to much knowledge, which wearies 
them of merely mundane matters, hold that the order- 
ing of men, the following of them about by subserv- 
ient people, and the continual glitter about them 
of the fine things of this world, are, after all, but of 
mean and melancholy account, because life is so brief, 
and this accidental pre-eminence is very transitory. 
Splendour, show, and bowing little delight the raised 
and abstract mind. That circuit of comfort formed 
by the owning of money and riches is circumscribed 
by the possessor's own ken. What is outside of this 
sight may just as well be enjoyed by any other person 
as by the owner, since all is the thinking of it ; only 
granting that a man has sufficient for his daily wants, 



i8 



THE MSICRUCIANS 



letting the ' morrow, indeed, take thought for itself \ 
One dinner a day, one bed for each night, in the alter- 
nations of sun and darkness, one of everything that 
is agreeable to (or is desirable for) man, is sufficient 
for any one man. A man's troubles are increased 
by the multiplication even of his enjoyments, because 
he is then beset with anxiety as to their repetition 
or maintenance. Reduction of things to attend to, 
and not multiplication, is his policy, because think- 
ing of it is all that can affect him about anything ir 
this world. 

By the time that the deep, philosophical chemist 
has penetrated to the control and conversion of the 
ultimate elements, so as to have in his view the secret 
operations of Nature, and to have caught Nature, 
as it were, preparing her presentments and arrang- 
ing her disguises behind the scenes, he is no more to 
be amused with vain book-physics. After his spy- 
ing into the subtle processes of Nature, he cannot be 
contented with the ordinary toys of men ; for are 
not worldly possessions, honour, rank, money, even 
wives and numerous or any children, but toys in a 
certain sense ? Where sink they in importance to 
him when the great unknown sets in which awaits 
every man ? He who can work as Nature works, 
causing the sunshine, so to speak, to light fire up inde- 
pendently in itself, and to breed and propagate precious 
things upon the atmosphere in which it burns, causing 
the growing supernatural soul to work amidst the 
seeds of gold, and to purge the material, devilish mass 
until the excrement is expelled, and it springs in 
health into condensating, solid splendour, a produce 
again to be sown, to fructify into fresh harvests — 
the alchemist, or prince of chemists, who can do this, 
laughs at the hoards of kings. By the time that the 
artist is thus so much more than man, is he the less 



LIFE: ITS BREVITY 



ig 



desirous of the gratifying things to the ordinary man. 
Grandeur fades to him before such high intellectual 
grandeur. He is nearer to the angels, and the world 
has sunk infinitely below. His is the sky, and the 
bright shapes of the clouds of the sky : which he is 
going to convert, perhaps, into prisms, showering 
solid triumphs. He can well leave to common man 
his acres of mud, and the turbid pools spotted over 
them like the shining, showy discs of a snake. Man, 
under these enlightened philosophical circumstances, 
will only value the unseen kingdoms — glimpses of 
the immortal glories of which and of their Rosicrucian 
inhabitants he has obtained in his magic reveries. 
What can the longest ordinary man's life give to such 
a gifted thinker ? Man's senses and their gratifica- 
tion, as long as the inlets and avenues of perception 
remain— world's music, so long as the strings cling 
tight, for the air of imagination to play upon them — 
appetites, with downward eyes to find their satisfact- 
ion — man's mortality, with an exit into the shadows 
or into the grave while the sun is up : the longest 
life can but give him repetition to satiety of these 
things— repetitions until he seems almost to tire of 
the common sun. Of which he grows weary, as well 
as of his waste or extent of knowledge. 

To some minds, this world does not present such 
extraordinary attractions. The very possession of 
the heights of knowledge induces rather stay up there, 
amidst the stars, than descent. Every man almost 
has felt the sublime exaltation of a great height, when 
he has achieved the top of a high hill, and looks out 
and over the landscape for miles and miles. How 
very little the world looks under him ! He is obliged 
to descend, because he has his home under there. 
But he quits the upper regions with reluctance, al- 
though it is somewhat frightening (as though he 



20 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



were going to be flown away with) to stay so high up. 
You become giddy by looking up at the stars, which 
then seem to be so much nearer as to be attainable. 

Limited as it is, life itself — very brief, very empty, 
very much disposed to repeat dull things, gathering 
up from about you in a strange sensation sometimes, 
in folds like a dream, or flowing on like a sleep-induc- 
ing river to the sea, carrying faces seen and snatched 
away, and obliterating voices which change into 
echoes — life, at its very best, ought to be the stoicism 
of the spectator, who feels that he has come here 
somehow, though for what purpose he knows not ; 
and he is rather amused as at a comedy in life, than 
engaged in it as in a business. Even perpetual youth, 
and life prolonged, with pleasures infinite — even 
the fancied ever-during life — would, to the deeply 
thinking man who had risen, as it were, over life, and 
to that strangely gifted being who has in himself the 
power of self-perpetuation (like the Wandering Jew), 
seem vain. Man can be conceived as tiring of the 
sun — tiring of consciousness even. What an expres- 
sion is that, ' forgotten by Death ' ! The only being 
through whom the scythe of the great destroyer passes 
scatheless ! That life, as a phantom, which is the 
only conceivable terrible doom of the ' Wanderer ' 
(if such a magical being ever existed) ; whom as a 
locomotive symbol, to be perpetuated through the 
ages, the earth, at the command of the Saviour, 
refused to hide, and of whom a legend — soon hushed 
in again — now and then rises to the popular whisper 
and to the popular distrust ! 

We only adduce these remarks to show that, in 
the face of the spectator of the great ultimate, mysteri- 
ous man, children are no necessity, but an anxiety, 
estates are a burden, ' business ' is the oft-told pur- 
poseless tale to the wearying ear. He who can be 



THE WANDERING JEW 



21 



the spectator of the ages has no particulars in ordinary 
life. He has nothing which, can interest him. He 
can have no precise and consolidated likings or affect- 
ions or admirations, or even aversions, because the 
world is as a toy-shop to him — its small mechanism 
is an artificial show, of which (given the knowledge 
of the wheels) he can predicate as to the movements 
safely — completely. 

To return for a moment to the idea of the ' Wander- 
ing Jew which some have supposed to be derived 
from the claim of the Rosicrucians to the possession 
of a secret means of renewing youth, and to the escape 
of some notion of it from out their writings. Even 
supposing that this strange tale was true, nothing 
can be imagined more melancholy than the state of 
this lone traveller, moving with his awful secret 
through the world, and seeing the successive generat- 
ions, like leaves, perishing from about him. He 
counts the years like the traveller of a long summer 
day, to whom the evening will never come, though he 
sees his temporary companions, at the different hours of 
the day, depart appropriately and disappearing to 
their several homes by the wayside. To him the 
childhood of his companions seems to turn to old age 
in an hour. He remembers the far-off ancestors of 
his contemporaries. Fashions fleet, but your unsus- 
pected youth is accommodated to all. Yours is, 
indeed, the persecution of the day-life, which will 
not let you fall to sleep and cease to see the vanity 
of everything. Your friends of any period disappear. 
The assurance of the emptiness of all things is the 
stone as into which your heart is turned. Grey hairs 
(and the old face) have nothing with you, though 
you see them appearing upon all others. Familiar 
objects disappear from about }^ou, and you and the 
sun seem the only things that survive as old friends. 



22 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Indeed, it may be doubtful whether, to this supposed 
man of the ages, the generations would not seem to 
be produced as a purposeless efflux out of the ground 
by the sun, like flowers or plants ; so as mere matter 
of mould would all flesh appear, with a phenomenon 
only going with it in the article of the figure's upright- 
ness as man ; it having so strangely set its face against 
the stars, unlike the creatures doomed to move hori- 
zontally. 

We make these observations to show that, notwith- 
standing the opinions of the world to the contrary, 
there may have been men who have possessed these 
gifts — that is, the power of making gold and of per- 
petuating their lives — and yet that the exercise of 
these powers was forborne ; and also that their secrets 
of production have most carefully been kept, lest 
less wise men should (to speak in figure) have ' rushed 
in where they feared to tread and have abused 
where the philosophers even would not use — despis- 
ing wealth, which they could not enjoy, and declining 
a perpetuated life, which would only add to their 
weariness — life being only a repetition of the same 
suns, already found too unmeaning and too long. 
For it is a mistake to suppose that this life is so equally 
enjoyable by all. There is a sublime sorrow of the 
ages, as of the lone ocean. There is the languish- 
ment for the ever-lost original home in this tearful 
mortal state. 

The philosophers knew that possession blunted 
desire, and that rich men may be poor men. A 
remarkable answer was made by a man who, to all 
appearance, possessed superabundantly the advan- 
tages of life — wealth, honour, wife, children, * troops 
of friends ', even health, by day : but in his night he 
lived another life, for in it was presented another 
picture, and that unfailingly uncomfortable, even 



DREAMS 



23 



to this good man — exchanging joy for horror. ' My 
friend replied he to an inquirer, ' never congratu- 
late a man upon his happiness until you become 
aware how he sleeps. Dreams are as that baleful 
country into which I pass every night of my life ; 
and what can be said to a man who dreams constantly 
(and believes it) that he is with the devil ' ? 

There was no answering this, for every person leads 
two lives, altogether independent of each other — the 
days and the nights both full of life, though the night, 
with the dreams, may be of an opposite order. The 
world's circumstances may afford you solace and 
gratification — even happiness — in the day ; but you 
may be very miserable, notwithstanding, if it happen 
that you have persecution in your dreams. Here 
the world's advantages are of no use to you, for you 
are delivered over helpless, night after night, in your 
sleep — and you must have sleep — to the dominion 
of Other Powers, whom all your guards cannot keep 
out, for their inlet is quite of another kind than the 
ordinary life's access. We advise you, then, to be- 
ware of this dark door ; the other will perhaps take 
care of itself, letting in no ugly things upon you ; 
but the former may let in unpleasant things upon 
you in full grasp with your hands bound. 



CHAPTER THE FIFTH 



THE HERMETIC PHILOSOPHERS 

There was among the sages a writer, Artephius, 
whose productions are very famous among the Her- 
metic Philosophers, insomuch that the noble Olaus 
Borrichius, an excellent writer and a most candid 
critic, recommends these books to the attentive 
perusal of those who would acquire knowledge of 
this sublime highest philosophy. He is said to have 
invented a cabalistic magnet which possessed the 
extraordinary property of secretly attracting the 
aura, or mysterious spirit of human efflorescence 
and prosperous bodily growth, out of young men ; 
and these benign and healthful springs of life 
he gathered up, and applied by his magic art to him- 
self — by inspiration, transudation, or otherwise — ■ 
so that he concentred in his own body, waning in age, 
the accumulated rejuvenescence of many young 
people : the individual owners of which new fresh 
life suffered and were consumed in proportion to the 
extent in which he preyed vitally upon them, and 
some of them were exhausted by this enchanter and 
died. This was because their fresh young vitality 
had been unconsciously drawn out of them in his 
baneful, devouring society, which was unsuspected 
because it afforded a glamour delightful. Now this 
seems absurd ; but it is not so absurd as we suppose 
when considered sympathetically. 

Sacred history affords considerable authority to 
this kind of opinion. We all are acquainted with the 

24 



THE ELIXIR OF LIFE 



25 



history of King David, to whom, when he grew old 
and stricken in years, Abishag, the Shunammite, was 
brought to recover him — a damsel described as ' very 
fair ' ; and we are told that she 1 lay in his bosom ', 
and that thereby he ' gat heat ' — which means vital 
heat, but that the king ' knew her not \ This latter 
clause in 1 Kings i. 4, all the larger critics, including 
those who speak in the commentaries of Munster, 
Grotius, Vossius, and others, interpret in the same 
way. The seraglios of the Mohammedans have 
more of this less lustful meaning, probably, than is 
commonly supposed. The ancient physicians appear 
to have been thoroughly acquainted with the advan- 
tages of the companionship, without irregular indul- 
gence, of the young to the old in the renewal of their 
vital powers. 

The elixir of life was also prepared by other and 
less criminal means than those singular ones hinted 
above. It was produced out of the secret chemical 
laboratories of Nature by some adepts. The famous 
chemist, Robert Boyle, mentions a preparation in 
his works, of which Dr. Le Fevre gave him an account 
in the presence of a famous physician and of another 
learned man. An intimate friend of the physician, 
as Boyle relates, had given, out of curiosity, a small 
quantity of this medicated wine or preparation to an 
old female domestic ; and this, being agreeable to the 
taste, had been partaken of for ten or twelve days by 
the woman, who was near seventy years of age, but 
whom the doctor did not inform what the liquor was, 
nor what advantage he was expecting that it might 
effect. A great change did indeed occur with this 
old woman ; for she acquired much greater activity, 
a sort of youthful bloom came to her countenance, 
her face was becoming much more smooth and agree- 
able ; and beyond this, as a still more decided step 



26 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



backward to her 3^outhful period, certain purgationes 
came upon her again with sufficiently severe indicat- 
ions to frighten her very much as to their meaning ; 
so that the doctor, greatly surprised at his success, 
was compelled to forego his further experiments, and 
to suppress all mention of this miraculous new cordial, 
for fear of alarming people with incomprehensible 
novelties — in regard to which they are very tenacious, 
having prejudices inveterate. 

But with respect to centenarians, some persons 
have been mentioned as having survived for hundreds 
of years, moving as occasion demanded from country 
to country ; when the time arrived that, in the natural 
course of things, they should die, or be expected to 
die, merely changing their names, and reappearing 
in another place as new persons — they having long 
survived all who knew them, and thus being safe 
from the risk of discovery. The Rosier ucians always 
most jealously guarded these secrets, speaking in 
enigmas and parables for the most part ; and they 
adopted as their motto the advice of one of their 
number, one of the Gnostics of the early Christian 
period : ' Learn to know all, but keep thyself un- 
known'. Further, it is not generally known that 
the true Rosicrucians bound themselves to obliga- 
tions of comparative poverty but absolute chastity 
in the world, with certain dispensations and remis- 
sions that fully answered their purpose ; for they 
were not necessarily solitary people : on the contrary, 
they were frequently gregarious, and mixed freely 
with all classes, though privately admitting no law 
but their own. 

Their notions of poverty, or comparative poverty, 
were different from those that usually prevail. They 
felt that neither monarchs nor the wealth of monarchs 
could endow or aggrandize those who already esteemed 



THE ILLUMINATED BROTHERS 



27 



themselves the superiors of all men ; and therefore, 
though declining riches, they were voluntary in the 
renunciation of them. They held to chastity, because, 
entertaining some very peculiar notions about the 
real position in creation of the female sex, the Enlight- 
ened or Illuminated Brothers held the monastic or 
celibate state to be infinitely that more consonant 
with the intentions of Providence, since in everything 
possible to man's frail nature they sought to trample 
on the pollutions and the great degradation of this 
his state in flesh. They trusted the great lines of 
Nature, not in the whole, but in part, as they believed 
Nature was in certain senses not true and a betrayer, 
and that she was not wholly the benevolent power 
to endow, as accorded with the prevailing deceived 
notion. We wish not to discuss more particularly 
than thus the extremely refined and abstruse pro- 
testing views of these fantastic religionists, who 
ignored Nature. We have drawn to ourselves a cer- 
tain frontier of reticence, up to which margin we 
may freely comment ; and the limit is quite extended 
enough for the present popular purpose, though we 
absolutely refuse to overpass it with too distinct 
explanation, or to enlarge further on the strange 
persuasions of the Rosicrucians. 

There is related, upon excellent authority, to have 
happened an extraordinary incident at Venice, that 
made a very great stir among the talkers in that 
ancient place, and which we will here supply at length, 
as due to so mysterious and amusing an episode. 
Every one who has visited Venice in these days, and 
still more those of the old-fashioned time who have 
put their experience of it on record, are aware that 
freedom and ease among persons who make a good 
appearance prevail there to an extent that, in this 
reserved and suspicious country, is difficult to realize. 



2S 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



This doubt of respectability until conviction disarms 
has a certain constrained and unamiable effect on our 
English manners, though it occasionally secures us 
from imposition, at the expense perhaps of pur accessi- 
bility. A stranger who arrived in Venice one sum- 
mer, towards the end of the seventeenth century, and 
who took up his residence in one of the best sections 
of the city, by the considerable figure which he made, 
and through his own manners, which were polished, 
composed, and elegant, was admitted into the best 
company — this though he came with no introductions, 
nor did anybody exactly know who or what he was. 
His figure was exceedingly elegant and well-propor- 
tioned, his face oval and long, his forehead ample and 
pale, and the intellectual faculties were surprisingly 
brought out, and in distinguished prominence. His 
hair was long, dark, and flowing ; his smile inexpressibly 
fascinating, yet sad ; and the deep light of his eyes 
seemed laden, to the attention sometimes of those 
noting him, with the sentiments and experience of 
all the historic periods. But his conversation, when 
he chose to converse, and his attainments and know- 
ledge, were marvellous ; though he seemed always 
striving to keep himself back, and to avoid saying 
too much, yet not with an ostentatious reticence. 
He went by the name of Signor Gualdi and was 
looked upon as a plain private gentleman, of mode- 
rate independent estate. He was an interesting char- 
acter ; in short, one to make an observer speculate 
concerning him. 

This gentleman remained at Venice for some months, 
and was known by the name of ' The Sober Signior ' 
among the common people, on account of the regu- 
larity of his life, the composed simplicity of his man- 
ners, and the quietness of his costume ; for he always 
wore dark clothes, and these of a plain, unpretending 



THE STRANGER AT VENICE 



29 



style. Three things were remarked of him during 
his stay at Venice. The first was, that he had a 
small collection of fine pictures, which he readily 
showed to everybody that desired it ; the next, that 
he seemed perfectly versed in all arts and sciences, 
and spoke always with such minute correctness as to 
particulars as astonished, nay, silenced, all who heard 
him, because he seemed to have been present at the 
occurrences which he related, making the most unex- 
pected correction in small facts sometimes. And 
it was, in the third place, observed that he never 
wrote or received any letter, never desired any credit, 
but always paid for everything in ready money, and 
made no use of bankers, bills of exchange, or letters 
of credit. However, he always seemed to have 
enough, and he lived respectably, though with no 
attempt at splendour or show. 

Signor Gualdi met, shortly after his arrival at 
Venice, one day, at the coffee-house which he was in 
the habit of frequenting, a Venetian nobleman of 
sociable manners, who was very fond of art, and this 
pair used to engage in sundry discussions ; and they 
had many conversations concerning the various objects 
and pursuits which were interesting to both of them. 
Acquaintance ripened into friendly esteem ; and the 
nobleman invited Signor Gualdi to his private house, 
whereat — for he was a widower — Signor Gualdi 
first met the nobleman's daughter, a very beautiful 
young maiden of eighteen, of much grace and intelli- 
gence, and of great accomplishments. The noble- 
man's daughter was just introduced at her father's 
house from a convent, or pension, where she had been 
educated by the nuns. This young lady, in short, 
from constantly being in his society, and listening to 
his interesting narratives, gradually fell in love with 
the mysterious stranger, much for the reasons of 



30 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Desdemona ; though Signor Gualdi was no swarthy 
Moor, but only a well-educated gentleman — a thinker 
rather than the desirer to be a doer. At times, indeed, 
his countenance seemed to grow splendid and magical 
in expression ; and he boasted certainly wondrous 
discourse ; and a strange and weird fascination would 
grow up about him, as it were, when he became more 
than usually pleased, communicative, and animated. 
Altogether, when you were set thinking about him, 
he seemed a puzzling person, and of rare gifts ; though 
when mixing only with the crowd you would scarcely 
distinguish him from the crowd ; nor would you 
observe him, unless there was something romantically 
akin to him in you excited by his talk. 

And now for a few remarks on the imputed character 
of these Rosicrucians. And in regard to them, how- 
ever their existence is disbelieved, the matters of 
fact we meet with, sprinkled, but very sparingly, 
in the history of these hermetic people, are so astonish- 
ing, and at the same time are preferred with such 
confidence, that if we disbelieve — which it is imposs- 
ible to avoid, and that from the preposterous and 
unearthly nature of their pretensions — we cannot 
escape the conviction that, if there is not foundation 
for it, their impudence and egotism is most audacious. 
They speak of all mankind as infinitely, beneath 
them ; their pride is beyond idea, although they are 
most humble and quiet in exterior. They glory in 
poverty, and declare that it is the state ordered for 
them ; and this though they boast universal riches. 
They decline all human affections, or submit to them 
as advisable escapes only — appearance of loving obligat- 
ions, which are assumed for convenient acceptance, 
or for passing in a world which is composed of them, 
or of their supposal. They mingle most gracefully 
in the society of women, with hearts wholly incapable 



OCCULT PHILOSOPHERS 



3i 



of softness in this direction ; while they criticize 
them with pity or contempt in their own minds as 
altogether another order of beings from men. They 
are most simple and deferential in their exterior • 
and yet the self-value which fills their hearts ceases 
its self-glorying expansion only with the bound- 
less skies. Up to a certain point, they are the sincerest 
people in the world; but rock is soft to their impenetrab- 
ility afterwards. In comparison with the hermetic 
adepts, monarchs are poor, and their greatest accumu- 
lations are contemptible. By the side of the sages, 
the most learned are mere dolts and blockheads. 
They make no movement towards fame, because they 
abnegate and disdain it. If they become famous, 
it is in spite of themselves : they seek no honours, 
because there can be no gratification in honours to such 
people. Their greatest wish is to steal unnoticed and 
unchallenged through the world, and to amuse them- 
selves with the world because they are in it, and because 
they find it about them. Thus, towards mankind 
they are negative ; towards everything else, positive ; 
self-contained, self-illuminated, self-everything ; but 
always prepared (nay, enjoined) to do good, wherever 
possible or safe. 

To this immeasurable exaltation of themselves, 
what standard of measure, or what appreciation, can 
you apply ? Ordinary estimates fail in the idea of it. 
Either the state of these occult philosophers is the 
height of sublimity, or it is the height of absurdity. 
Not being competent to understand them or their 
claims, the world insists that these are futile. The 
result entirely depends upon their being fact or fancy 
in the ideas of the hermetic philosophers. The puzz- 
ling part of the investigation is, that the treatises 
of these profound writers abound in the most acute 
discourse upon difficult subjects, and contain splendid 



32 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



passages and truths upon all subjects — upon the 
nature of metals, upon medical science, upon the 
unsupposed properties of simples, upon theologica. 
and ontological speculation, and upon science and 
objects of thought generally — upon all these matters 
they enlarge to the reader stupendously — when the 
proper attention is directed to them. 



CHAPTER THE SIXTH 



AN HISTORICAL ADVENTURE 

But to return to Signor Gualdi, from whom we have 
notwithstanding made no impertinent digression, since 
he was eventually suspected to be one of the strange 
people, or Rosicrucians, or Ever-Livers of whom we 
are treating. This was from mysterious circumstances 
which occurred afterwards in relation to him, and 
which are in print. 

The Venetian nobleman was now on a footing of 
sufficient intimacy with Signor Gualdi to say to him 
one evening, at his own house, that he understood 
that he had a fine collection of pictures, and that, if 
agreeable,, he would pay him a visit some day for the 
purpose of viewing them. The nobleman's daughter 
who was present, and who was pensively looking 
down upon the table, more than half in love with the 
stranger as she had become, thinking deeply of some- 
thing that the Signor had just said, raised her eyes 
eagerly at this expression of wish by her father and, 
as accorded with her feelings, she appeared, though 
she spoke not, to be greatly desirous to make one of 
the party to see the pictures. It was natural that 
she should secretly rejoice at this opportunity of 
becoming more intimately acquainted with the domestic 
life of one whom she had grown to regard with feelings 
of such powerful interest. She felt that the mere 
fact of being his guest, and under the roof which was 
his, would seem to bring her nearer to him ; and, as 
common with lovers, it appeared to her that their 



34 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



being thus together would, in feeling at least, appear 
to identify both. Signor Gualdi was very polite, and 
readily invited the nobleman to his house, and also 
extended the invitation to the young lady, should 
she feel disposed to accompany her father, since he 
divined from the expression of her face that she was 
wishful to that effect. The day for the visit was 
then named, and the Signor took his departure with 
the expressions of friendship on all sides which usually 
ended their pleasant meetings. 

It followed from this arrangement, that on the 
day appointed the father and daughter went to Signor 
Gualdi's house. They -were received by the Signor 
with warm kindness, and were shown over his rooms 
with every mark of friendliness and distinction. The 
nobleman viewed Signor Gualdi' s pictures with great 
attention ; and when he had completed his tour of 
the gallery, he expressed his satisfaction by telling 
the Signor that he had never seen a finer collection, 
considering the number of pieces. They were now 
in Signor Gualdi' s own chamber — the last of his set 
of rooms ; and they were just on the point of turning 
to go out and bidding adieu, and Gualdi was court- 
eously removing the tapestry from before the door 
to widen the egress, when the nobleman, who had 
paused to allow him thus to clear the way, by chance 
cast his eyes upwards over the door, where there 
hung a picture with the curtain accidentally left un- 
drawn, evidently of the stranger himself. The Vene- 
tian looked upon it with doubt, and after a while his 
face fell ; but it soon cleared, as if with relief. The 
gaze of the daughter was also now riveted upon the 
picture, which was very like Gualdi ; but she regarded 
it with a look of tenderness and a blush. The Venetian 
looked from the picture to Gualdi, and back again 
from Gualdi to the picture. It was some time before 



THE MYSTERIOUS PORTRAIT 



35 



he spoke ; and when he did, his voice sounded 
strangely. 

' That picture was intended for you, sir ', said he 
at last, hesitating, to Signor Gualdi. A slight cold 
change passed over the eyes of the stranger ; but he 
only made reply by a low bow. 1 You look a moder- 
ately young man — to be candid with you, sir, I should 
say about forty-five or thereabouts ; and yet I know, 
by certain means of which I will not now further 
speak, that this picture is by the hand of Titian, who 
has been dead nearly a couple of hundred years. 
How is this possible ' ? he added, with a polite, grave 
smile. ' It is not easy ', said Signor Gualdi quietly, 
' to know all things that are possible or not possible, 
for very frequently mistakes are made concerning 
such ; but there is certainly nothing strange in my 
being like a portrait painted by Titian.' The noble- 
man easily perceived by his manner, and by a moment- 
ary cloud upon his brow, that the stranger felt offence. 
The daughter clung to her father's arm, secretly afraid 
that this little unexpected demur might pass into 
coolness, and end with a consummation of estrange- 
ment, which she feared excessively ; she dreaded 
nervously the rupture of their intimacy with the 
stranger \ and, contradictory as it may seem, she 
wanted to withdraw, even without the demur she 
dreaded being cleared up into renewed pleasant confi- 
dence. However, this little temporary misunder- 
standing was soon put an end to by Signor Gualdi 
himself, who in a moment or two resumed his ordinary 
manner ; and he saw the father and daughter down- 
stairs, and forth to the entrance of his house, with his 
usual composed politeness, though the nobleman 
could not help some feeling of restraint, and his daughter 
experienced a considerable amount of mortificat- 
ion ; and she could not look at Signor Gualdi, or 



36 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



rather, when she did, she dwelt on his face too much. 

This little occurrence remained as a puzzle in the 
mind of the nobleman. His daughter felt lonely and 
dissatisfied afterwards, eager for the restoration of 
the same friendly feeling with Signor Gualdi, and 
revolving in her mind, with the ingenuity of love, 
numberless schemes to achieve it. The Venetian 
betook himself in the evening to the usual coffee- 
house ; and he could not forbear speaking of the 
incident among the group of people collected there. 
Their curiosity was roused, and one or two resolved 
to satisfy themselves by looking at the picture atten- 
tively the next morning. But to obtain an oppor- 
tunity to see the picture on this next morning, it was 
necessary to see the Signor Gualdi somewhere, and 
to have the invitation of so reserved a man to his 
lodgings for the purpose. The only likely place to 
meet with him was at the coffee-house ; and thither 
the gentlemen went at the usual time, hoping, as it 
was the Signor's habit to present himself, that he 
would do so. But he did not come ; nor had he 
been heard of from the time of the visit of the noble- 
man the day before to the Signor's house — which 
absence, for the first time almost that he had been 
in Venice, surprised everybody. But as they did not 
meet with him at the coffee-house, as they thought 
was sure, one of the persons who had the oftenest 
conversed with the Signor, and therefore was the freer 
in his acquaintance, undertook to go to his lodgings 
and inquire after him, which he did ; but he was 
answered by the owner of the house, who came to the 
street-door to respond to the questioner, that the 
Signor had gone, having quitted Venice that morning 
early, and that he had locked up his pictures with 
certain orders, and had taken the key of his rooms 
with him. 



'HERMIPPUS REDIVIVUS' 



37 



This affair made a great noise at the time in Venice ; 
and an account of it found its way into most of the 
newspapers of the year in which it occurred. In these 
newspapers and elsewhere, an outline of the foregoing 
particulars may be seen. The account of the Signor 
Gualdi will also be met with in Les Memoir es His- 
toriques for the year 1687, tome i. p. 365. The chief 
particulars of our own narrative are extracted from 
an old book in our collection treating of well-attested 
relations of the sages, and of life protracted by their 
art for several centuries : Hermippus Redivivus ; 
or, the Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave. 
London, Second Edition, much enlarged. Printed 
for J. Nourse, at The Lamb, against Catherine Street 
in the Strand, in the year 1749. 

And thus much for the history of Signor Gualdi, 
who was suspected to be a Rosicrucian. 

We shall have further interesting notices of these 
unaccountable people as we proceed. 



CHAPTER THE SEVENTH 



THE HERMETIC BRETHREN 

The following passages occur in a letter published 
by some anonymous members of the R.C., and are 
adduced in a translation from the Latin by one of 
the most famous men of the order, who addressed 
from the University of Oxford about the period of 
Oliver Cromwell ; to which university the great 
English Rosicrucian, Robertus de Fluctibus (Robert 
Flood), also belonged, in the time of James the First 
and Charles the First. We have made repeated visits 
to the church where Robert Flood lies buried. 

' Every man naturally desires superiority. Men 
wish for treasures and to seem great in the eyes of 
the world. God, indeed, created all things to the 
end that man might give Him thanks. But there is 
no individual thinks of his proper duties ; he secretly 
desires to spend his days idly, and would enjoy riches 
and pleasures without any previous labour or danger. 
When we ' (professors of abstruse sciences) 1 speak, 
men either revile or contemn, they either envy or 
laugh. When we discourse of gold, they assume that 
we would assuredly produce it if we could, because 
they judge us by themselves ; and when we debate 
of it, and enlarge upon it, they imagine we shall finish 
by teaching them how to make gold by art, or furnish 
them with it already made. And wherefore or why 
should we teach them the way to these mighty posses- 
sions ? Shall it be to the end that men may live 
pompously in the eyes of the world ; swagger and 

38 



THE ROSY CROSS 



30 



make wars ; be violent when they are contradicted ; 
turn usurers, gluttons, and drunkards ; abandon 
themselves to lust ? Now, all these things deface 
and defile man, and the holy temple of man's body, 
and are plainly against the ordinances of God. For 
this dream of the world, as also the body or vehicle 
through which it is made manifest, the Lord intended 
to be pure. And it was not purposed, in the divine 
arrangement, that men should grow again down to 
the earth. It is for other purposes that the stars, in 
their attraction, have raised man on his feet, instead 
of abandoning him to the <c all fours " that were the 
imperfect tentatives of nature until. life, through the 
supernatural impulse, rose above its original con- 
demned level — base and relegate. 

' We of the secret knowledge do wrap ourselves in 
mystery, to avoid the objurgation and importunity 
or violence of those who conceive that we cannot be 
philosophers unless we put our knowledge to some 
ordinary worldly use. There is scarcely one who 
thinks about us who does not believe that our society 
has no existence ; because, as he truly declares, he 
never met any of us. And he concludes that there 
is no such brotherhood because, in his vanity, we seek 
not him to be our fellow. We do not come, as he 
assuredly expects, to that conspicuous stage upon 
which, like himself, as he desires the gaze of the vulgar, 
every fool may enter ; winning wonder, if the man's 
appetite be that empty way ; and, when he has ob- 
tained it, crying out " Lo, this is also vanity ! " ' 

Dr. Edmund Dickenson, physician to King Charles 
the Second, a professed seeker of the hermetic know- 
ledge, produced a book entitled, De Quinta Essentia 
Philosophorum : which was printed at Oxford in 
1686, and a second time in 1705. There was a third 
edition of it printed in Germany in 172 1. In corres- 



40 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

pondence with a French adept, the latter explains 
the reasons why the Brothers of the Rosy Cross con- 
cealed themselves. As to the universal medicine, 
Elixir Vitce y or potable form of the preternatural 
menstruum, he positively asserts that it is in the hands 
of the ' Illuminated but that, by the time they 
discover it, they have ceased to desire its uses, being 
far above them ; and as to life for centuries, being 
wishful for other things, they decline availing them- 
selves of it. He adds, that the adepts are obliged 
to conceal themselves for the sake of safety, because 
they would be abandoned in the consolations of the 
intercourse of this world (if they were not, indeed, 
exposed to worse risks), supposing that their gifts 
were proven to the conviction of the bystanders as 
more than human ; when they would become simply 
intolerable and abhorrent. Thus, there are excellent 
reasons for their conduct ; they proceed with the 
utmost caution, and instead of making a display of 
their powers, as vainglory is the least distinguish- 
ing characteristic of these great men, they studiously 
evade the idea that they possess any extraordinary 
or separate knowledge. They live simply as mere 
spectators in the world, and they desire to make no 
disciples, converts, nor confidants. They submit to 
the obligations of life, and to relationships — enjoy- 
ing the fellowship of none, admiring none, following 
none, but themselves. They obey all codes, are 
excellent citizens, and only preserve silence in regard 
to their own private convictions, giving the world 
the benefit of their acquirements up to a certain point : 
seeking only sympathy at some angles of their multi- 
form character, but shutting out curiosity wholly 
where they do not wish its imperative eyes. 

This is the reason that the Rosicrucians passed 
through the world mostly unnoticed, and that people 



THOMAS VAUGHAN 



4i 



generally disbelieve that there ever were such per- 
sons ; or believe that, if there were, their pretensions 
are an imposition. It is easy to discredit things 
which we do not understand — in fact, nature com- 
pels us to reject all propositions which do not con- 
sist with our reason. The true artist is supposed to 
avoid all suspicion, even on the part of those nearest 
to him. And granting the possibility of the Rosi- 
crucian means of the renewal of life, and supposing 
also that it was the desire of the hermetic philosopher, 
it would not be difficult for him so to order his arrange- 
ments as that he should seem to die in one place (to 
keep up the character of the natural manner of his 
life), by withdrawing himself, to reappear in another 
place as a new person at the time that seemed most 
convenient to him for the purpose. For everything, 
and every difficult thing, is easy to those with money ; 
nor will the world inquire with too resolute a curi- 
osity, if you have coolness and address, and if you 
have the art of accounting for things. The man of 
this order also is solus s and without wife or children 
to embarrass him in the private dispositon of his 
affairs, or to follow him too closely into his by-corners. 
Thus it will be seen that philosophers m^y live in the 
world, and have all these gifts, and yet be never heard 
of — or, if heard of, only as they themselves wish or 
suggest. 

As an instance of the unexpected risks which a 
member of this order may run if he turns his attent- 
ion to the practical side of his studies, spite of all his 
precautions, we may cite the accident which hap- 
pened to a famous Englishman, who disguised him- 
self under the name of Eugenius Philalethes, but 
whose real name is said to be Thomas Vaughan. He 
tells us of himself, that going to a goldsmith to sell 
twelve hundred marks' worth of gold, the man told 



42 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

him, at first sight, that it never came out of the mines, 
but was the production of art, as it was not of the 
standard of any known kingdom : which proved so 
sudden a dilemma to the offerer of the gold, that he 
withdrew immediately, leaving it behind him. It 
naturally follows from this, that it is not only neces- 
sary to have gold, but that the gold shall be market- 
able or acceptable gold, as otherwise it is utterly use- 
less for the purposes of conversion into money in this 
world. Thomas Vaughan, who was a scholar of Ox- 
ford, and was vehemently attacked in his lifetime, 
and who certainly was a Rosicrucian adept if there 
ever was one, led a wandering life, and fell often into 
great perplexities and dangers from the mere suspicion 
that he possessed extraordinary secrets. He was 
born, as we learn from his writings, about the year 
1612, which makes him a contemporary of the great 
English Rosicrucian, Robert Flood ; and what is the 
strangest part of his history, as we find remarked by 
a writer in 1749, is, that he is ' believed by those of his 
fraternity ' (so the author adds) ' to be living even 
now ; and a person of great credit at Nuremberg, in 
Germany, affirms that he conversed with him a year 
or two ago. Nay, it is further asserted ' (continues 
the author) ' that this very individual is the presi- 
dent of the Illuminated in Europe, and that he sits 
as such in all their annual meetings ' . Thomas Vaughan, 
according to the report of the philosopher Robert 
Boyle, and of others who knew him, was a man of 
remarkable piety, and of unstained morals. He 
has written and edited several invaluable works 
upon the secrets of the philosophers, some of which 
are in our possession ; among others : Introitus 
Apertus ad occlusum Regis Palatium ; Lumen de 
Lumine ; Magia Adamica ; Anima Magica Abscon- 
dita, and other learned books ; advancing very peculiar 



GEORGE STEPHENSON 



43 



theories concerning the seen and the unseen. These 
books were disbelieved at the time, and remain dis- 
credited, principally because they treat of eccentric 
and seemingly impossible things. It is, however, 
certain that we go but a very little way out of the 
usual learned track before we encounter puzzling 
matters, which may well set us investigating our 
knowledge, and looking with some suspicion upon its 
grounds, spite of all the pompous claims of modern 
philosophers, who are continually, on account of 
their conceitedness, making sad mistakes, and break- 
ing down with their plausible systems. 

' Progress and enlightenment are prerogatives to 
which no generation in particular can lay a special 
claim says a modern writer, speaking of railways 
and their invention. ' Intelligence like that of the 
Stephensons is born again and again, at lengthened 
intervals ; and it is only these giants in wisdom who 
know how to carry on to perfection the knowledge 
which centuries have been piling up before them. But 
the age in which such men are cast, is often unequal 
to appreciate the genius which seeks to elevate its 
aspiration. Thus it was in 1820 that Mr. William 
Brougham proposed to consign George Stephenson 
to Bedlam, for being the greatest benefactor of his 
time. But now that we have adopted somewhat 
fully his rejected ideas of steam-locomotion and high 
rates of speed, which were with so much difficulty 
forced upon us, we complacently call ourselves " en- 
lightened " ; and doubtless we are tolerably safe in 
doing so, considering that the Stephensons, and 
similar scientific visionaries, no longer live to contra- 
dict us.' We might add, that the Rosicrucians hold 
their critics in light esteem — indeed in very light 
esteem. 

If such is the disbelief of science of everyday use, 



44 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



what chance of credit has the abstruser knowledge, 
and those assertions of power which contradict our 
most ordinary ideas of possibility ? Common sense 
will answer, None at all. And yet all human con- 
clusions and resolutions upon points which have been 
considered beyond the possibility of contradiction 
have been sometimes at fault. The most politic 
course is not too vigorously to take our stand upon any 
supposed fixed point of truth, but simply to admit that 
our knowledge is limited, that absolute truth is alone 
in the knowledge of God, and that no more truth 
is vouchsafed to man than he knows how to utilize : 
most of his uses, even of his little quantum of truth, 
being perverted. He must await other states for 
greater light, and to become a higher creature — should 
that be his happy destiny. As to certainty in this 
world, there is none — nor can there be any. Whether 
there is anything outside of man is uncertain. Hume 
has pointed out that there is no sequence between 
one and two. Other philosophers have ingeniously 
detected that our senses are all one, or all none. Man 
is the picture painted upon external matter, and 
external matter is the individuality that surveys the 
picture. In the world of physics, colours are tones 
in other senses, and tones are colours * sevenfold in 
either case, as the planetary powers and influences 
are septenary — which, in the ideas of the Rosicrucians, 
produce both. 



CHAPTER THE EIGHTH 

MYTHIC HISTORY OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS 

The maypole is a phallos. The ribbons depending 
from the discus, or ring, through which the maypole 
pierces, should be of the seven prismatic colours — 
those of the rainbow (or Regne-beau). According to 
the Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Modern, 
a work by the Rev. C. W. King, M.A., published in 
1864, Horapollo has preserved a talisman, or Gnostic 
gem, in yellow jasper, which presents the engraved 
figure of a ' Cynocephalus, crowned, with baton erect, 
adoring the first appearance of the new moon \ 

The phallic worship prevailed, at one time, all over 
India. It constitutes, as Mr. Sellon asserts, to this 
day one of the chief, if not the leading, dogma of the 
Hindoo religion. Incontestable evidence could be 
adduced to prove this — however strange and imposs- 
ible it seems — the key of all worship the world over ; 
and highest in esteem in the most highly civilized 
nations. Though it has degenerated into gross and 
sensual superstition, it was originally intended as 
the worship of the creative principle in Nature. In- 
numerable curious particulars lie scattered up and 
down, in all countries of the world, relating to this 
worship, mad as it seems — bad as, in its grossness, 
it is. It is only in modern times that sensuality, and 
not sublimity, has been actively associated with this 
worship, however. There was a time when the rites 
connected with it were grand and solemn enough. 
The general diffusion of these notions regarding the 

45 



46 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Phalli and the Ioni } and of the sacred mystic suggest- 
ions implied in both, as well as the inflections in 
design of these unlikely, repulsive figures for serious 
worship, prove that there was something very extra- 
ordinary, and quite beyond belief to the moderns in 
the origin of them. The religion of the Phallos (and 
of its twin emblem) is to be traced all over the East. 
It appears to be the earliest worship practised by 
man. It prevailed not only amongst the Hindoos, 
Assyrians, Babylonians, Mexicans, Etruscans, Greeks, 
and Romans in ancient times, but it still forms an 
integral part of the worship of India, Thibet, China, 
Siam, Japan, and Africa. We cannot, therefore, 
afford, to ignore this grand scheme of ritual, when 
we discover it to be a religion so widely spread, and 
reappearing so unexpectedly, not only in the countries 
with which we are contemporaneously acquainted, 
but also in those old countries of which we in reality 
know very little, or nothing at all ; for all history 
reads doubtfully, being written for popular purposes. 

In the Temple-Herren of Nicolai there is an account 
of a Gnostic gem, or talisman, which represents a 
' Cynocephalus \ with a lunar disc on his head, stand- 
ing in the act of adoration, with sceptrum displayed, 
before a column engraved with letters, and support- 
ing a triangle. This latter architectural figure is, in 
fact, an obelisk. All the Egyptian obelisks were 
Phalli. The triangle symbolizes one of the Pillars of 
Hermes (Hercules). The Cynocephalus was sacred 
to him. The Pillars of Hermes have been Judaised 
into Solomon's ' Jachin and Boaz So says Herz, 
in regard to 1 Masonic Insignia ' . We will explain 
fully, later in our book, of these interesting sexual 
images, set up for adoration so strangely ; and from 
the meaning of which we foolishly but determinedly 
avert. 



ORIGIN OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS- 



4? 



We now propose to deduce a very original and a 
very elaborate genealogy, or descent, of the famous 
arms of France, the Flenrs-de-Lis, ' Lucifera \ Lisses, 
Luces, ' Lucies Bees, Scarabs, Scara-bees, or Im- 
perial ' Bees ' of Charlemagne, and of Napoleon the 
First and Napoleon the Third, from a very extra- 
ordinary and (we will, in the fullest assurance, add) 
the most unexpected point of view. The real beginn- 
ing of these inexpressibly sublime arms (or this 
1 badge '), although in itself, and apart from its pur- 
pose, it is the most refined, but mysteriously grand, 
in the world, contradictory as it may seem, is also the 
most ignoble. It has been the crux of the antiquaries 
and of the heralds for centuries ! We would rather 
be excused the mentioning of the peculiar item which 
has thus been held up to the highest honour (heraldic- 
ally) throughout the world. It will be sufficient 
to say that mystically, in its theological Gnostic 
allusion, it is the grandest device and most stupend- 
ous hint that armory ever saw ; and those who are 
qualified to apprehend our hidden meaning will per- 
haps read correctly and perceive our end by the time 
that they have terminated this strange section of our 
history of Rosicrucianism — for to it it refers particu- 
larly. 

Scarab sei, Lucifera (' Light-bringers '), Luce, Fleur- 
de-Lis, Lily, Lucia, Lucy, Lux, Lu( + )x. 

The Luce is the old-fashioned name for the ' pike ' 
or jack — a fish famous for the profuse generation of 
a certain insect, as some fishermen know full well. 
This once (incredible as it may seem) formed an object 
of worship, for the sake of the inexpressibly sublime 
things which it symbolized. Although so mean in 
itself, and although so far off, this implied the beginn- 
ing of all sublunary things. 

The bees of Charlemagne, the bees of the Empire 



48 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



in France, are 1 scarabs or figures of the same affinity 
as the Bourbon ' lilies ' . They deduce from a common 
ancestor. Now, the colour heraldic on which they 
are always emblazoned is azure, or blue — which is the 
colour of the sea, which is salt. In an anagram it 
may be expressed as f C\ Following on this allus- 
ion, we may say that ' Ventre-saint-gris ! ' is a very 
ancient French barbarous expletive, or oath. Liter- 
ally (which, in the occult sense, is always obscurely), 
it is the ' Sacred blue (or t grey) womb ' — which is 
absurd. Now, the reference and the meaning of this 
we will confidently commit to the penetration of those 
among our readers who can felicitously privately sur- 
mise it ; and also the apparently circuitous deductions, 
which are yet to come, to be made by us. 

Blue is the colour of the ' Virgin Maria ' . Maria, 
Mary, mare, mar, mara, means the ' bitterness ' or 
the ' saltness ' of the sea. Blue is expressive of the 
Hellenic, Isidian, Ionian, Yonian (Yoni-Indian) 
Watery, Female, and Moonlike Principle in the uni- 
versal theogony. It runs through all the mythologies. 

The ' Lady-Bird ' or ' Lady-Cow ' (there is no 
resemblance between a bird and a cow, it may be 
remarked, en passant, except in this strangely occult, 
almost ridiculous, affinity), and the rustic rhyme 
among the children concerning it, may be here remem- 
bered : 

Lady-Bird, Lady-Bird, fly away home ! 

Your House is on fire — your children at home ! 

Such may be heard in all parts of England when a 
lady-bird is seen by the children. Myths are inex- 
tricably embodied — like specks and straws and flies 
in amber — amidst the sayings and rhymes of the 
common people in all countries ; and they are there 
preserved for very many generations, reappearing 



STRANGE MYTHS 



49 



to recognition after the lapse sometimes of centuries. 
Now, how do we explain and re-render the above 
rude couplet ? The ' Lady-Bird ' is the ' Virgin 
Maria Isis, the ' Mother and Producer of Nature ' ; 
the ' House ' is the * Ecliptic ' — it is figuratively ' on 
fire \ or s of fire in the path of the sun ; and the 
' children at home ' are the ' months ' produced in 
the house of the sun, or the solar year, or the ' signs 
of the Zodiac ' — which were originally ' ten and 
not twelve n , each sign answering to one of the letters 
of the primeval alphabet, which were in number 
1 ten \ Thus, re-read, the lines run : 

Lady-Bird, Lady-Bird (Columba, or Dove), fly away home ! 
Your House is of Fire — your children are Ten / 

The name of the flying insect called in England ' Lady- 
Bird ' is Bete-d-Dieu in French, which means ' God- 
creature ' or ' God's creature \ The Napoleonic green 
is the mythic, magic green of Venus. The Emerald 
is the Smaragdus, or Smaragd. The name of the 
insect Barnabee, Barnbee, ' Burning Fire-Fly whose 
house is of fire, whose children are ten, is Red Chafer, 
Rother-Kaefer, Sonnen-Kaefer, Unser-Frauen Kohlein, 
in German ; it is ' Sun-Chafer ■ Our Lady's Little 
Cow Isis, or Io, or C — ow, in English. The chil- 
dren Tenne (Tin, or Tien, is fire in some languages) 
are the earliest ' Ten Signs ' in the Zodiacal Heavens 

1 Lady-Cow, Lady-Cow, All but a Little One 

Fly away home ! Under a ' Stone ' : 

Thy house is on fire, Fly thee home, Lady-Cow, 

Thy Children are flown. Ere it be gone. 

The ' Lady-Bird or ' Cow is the Virgin Mary, the ' Little One ' 
under the ' Stone ', or the 4 Mystic Human Possibility is the 
' Infant Saviour ' born in the mysterious 1 Month of the Propitia- 
tion or the mystical Astrological and Astronomical 1 Escaped 
Month ' of the Zodiac ; and the ' Stone ' is the ' Philosopher's 
Stone \ 

- - • - E 



5o 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



— each ' Sign ' with its Ten Decans, or Decumens, or 
' Leaders of Hosts \ They are also astronomically 
called ' Stalls or ' Stables \ We may here refer 
to Porphyry, Horapollo, and Chifflet's Gnostic Gems. 
The Speckled Beetle was flung into hot water to avert 
storms (Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. xxxvii. ch x). The 
antiquary Pignorius has a beetle ' crowned with the 
sun and encircled with the serpent \ Amongst the 
Gnostic illustrations published by Abraham Gorlaeus 
is that of a talisman of the more abstruse Gnostics 
— an onyx carved with a ' beetle which threatens to 
gnaw at a thunderbolt \ See Notes and Queries : 
( Bee Mythology \ 

The f Lilies ' are said not to have appeared in the 
French arms until the time of Philip Augustus. See 
Montfaucon's Monumens de la Monarchie Franc aise, 
Paris, 1729. Also Jean- Jacques Chi met, Anastasis de 
Childeric, 1655. See also Notes and Queries, 1856, 
London, 2d Series, for some learned papers on the 
1 Fleur-de-lis '. In the early armorial bearings of the 
Frankish kings, the ' lilies ' are represented as ' in- 
sects \ semeed (seeded), or spotted, on the blue field. 
These are, in their origin, the scarabcei of the Orientals ; 
they were dignified by the Egyptians as the emblems 
of the ' Enlightened ' . If the reader examines care- 
fully the sculpture in the British Museum representing 
the Mithraic Sacrifice of the Bull, with its mystic 
accompaniments (No. 14, Grand Central Saloon), he 
will perceive the scarabcens, or crab, playing a peculiar 
part in the particulars of the grand rite so strangely 
typified, and also so remotely. The motto placed 
under the ' lilies ', which are the arms of France, runs 
as follows : ' Liiia non laborant, neque nent \. This 
is also (as all know) the legend, or motto, accompany- 
ing the royal order of knighthood denominated that 
of the ' Saint-Esprit ' in France. We are immediately 



THE 'LISSES' OF FRANCE 



5i 



now recalled to those exceedingly obscure, but very 
significant, words of our Saviour, which have always 
seemed very erroneously interpreted, on account of 
their obvious contradictions : ' Consider the lilies of 
the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do 
they spin ' 1 . Now, in regard to this part of the text, 
what does the judicious speculator think of the follow- 
ing Rosicrucian gloss, or explanation ? Lilia non 
laborant (like bees) ; neque nent, ' neither do they spin ' 
(like spiders). Now of the ' lisses ', as we shall elect 
to call them. They toil not like ' bees ' (scarabcei) ; 
neither do they spin like ' spiders ' (arachnid ce). 

To be wise is to be enlightened. Lux is the Logos 
by whom all things were made ; and the Logos is 
Rasit — R.s.t. : 7 > .V.'t=6oo ; and Lux makes Lucis ; 
then LX, £'9=666. Again, L=5o, •\v=6 J w s=300, 
t i=io } w 5=300=666. 

The Fleur-de-lis is the Lotus (water-rose), the flower 
sacred to the Lux, or the Sul, or the Sun. The ' Auri- 
flamme ' (the flame of fire, or fire of gold) was the 
earliest standard of France. It was afterwards called 
Oriflamme. It was the sacred flag of France, and 
its colour was red — the heraldic, or 'Rosicrucian', 
red, signifying gold. The three ' Lotuses or ' Lisses 
were the coat of arms — emblems of the Trimurti, the 
three persons of the triple generative power, or of 
the Sun, or 'Lux', nbv, sle, ' Shilo is probably 
b > v 3 52,7=360, or x— 600, X— 50=10, i =6=666. This 
is Silo, or Selo. ' I have no doubt it was the 
invocation in the Psalms called " Selah ", rbuKD) 

1 The full quotation is the following : ' Consider the lilies of 
the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : 
and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon ' (here steps in some 
of the lore of the Masonic order) ' in all his glory was not arrayed ' 
(or exalted, or dignified, as it is more correctly rendered out of the 
original) ' like one of these ' (St. Matt. vi. 28). 



52 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Thus asserts the learned and judicious Godfrey Higg- 
ins. 

' The Holie Church of Rome herself doth compare 
the incomprehensible generation of the Sonne of God 
from His Father, together with His birth out of the 
pure and undented Virgine Marie, unto the Bees — 
which were in verie deede a great blasphemie, if the 
bees were not of so great valour and virtue ' (value 
and dignity). — ' Beehive of the Romish Church ' : 
Hone's Ancient Mysteries Described, p. 283. 

In the second edition of Nineveh and its Palaces, 
by Bonomi (London, Ingram, 1853), p. 138, the head- 
dress of the divinity Ilus is an egg-shaped cap ter- 
minating at the top in a fleur-de-lis ; at p. 149, the 
Dagon of Scripture has the same ; at p. 201, fig. 98, 
the same ornament appears ; at p. 202, fig. 99, a bearded 
figure has the usual 1 fleur-de-lis \ In the same page, 
the tiaras of two bearded figures are surmounted with 
fleurs-de-lis. At p. 322, fig. 211, the Assyrian helmet 
is surmounted with a fleur-de-lis ; at p. 334, fig. 217, 
the head-dress of the figure in the Assyrian standard 
has a fleur-de-lis ; at p. 340, fig. 245, the bronze 
resembles a fleur-de-lis ; at p. 350, fig. 254, an Egyp- 
tian example of the god Nilus, as on the thrones of 
Pharaoh-Necho, exhibits the fleur-de-lis. 

Vert, or green, and azure, or blue (feminine tinc- 
turesj, are the colours on which respectively the 
golden ' bees or the silver ' lisses are emblazoned. 
The Egyptian Scarabcei are frequently cut in stone, 
generally in green-coloured basalt, or verdantique. 
Some have hieroglyphics on them, which are more 
rare ; others are quite plain. In the tombs of Thebes, 
Belzoni found scarabcei with human heads. There is 
hardly any symbolical figure which recurs so often 
in Egyptian sculpture or painting as the scarabceus, or 
beetle, and perhaps scarcely any one which it is so 



CROMLECHS 



53 



difficult to explain. He is often represented with a 
ball between his forelegs, which some take for a sym- 
bol of the world, or the sun. He may be an emblem 
of fertility. The ' crab ' on the Denderah Zodiac 
is by some supposed to be a 4 beetle ' (Egyptian An- 
tiquities). It is for some of the preceding reasons 
that one of the mystic names of Lucifer, or the Devil, 
is the ' Lord of Flies for which strange appellation 
all antiquaries, and other learned decipherers, have 
found it impossible to account. 

Of the figure of the Fleur-de-Luce, Fieur-de-Lis, or 
Flower -de-Luce (Lus, Luz, Loose), the following may 
be remarked. On its sublime, abstract side, it is the 
symbol of the mighty self -producing, self-begetting 
Generative Power deified in many myths. We may 
make a question, in the lower sense, in this regard, 
of the word ' loose namely, wanton, and the word 
' lech or ' leche and ' lecher etc. Consider, also, 
in the solemn and terrible sense, the name Crom- 
Lech, or ' crown or ' arched entry or ' gate of 
death. The Druidical stones were generally called 
cromlechs when placed in groups of two 1 , with a cop- 
ing or capstone over, similarly to the form of the Greek 
letter pi (IT , w) 3 which was imitated from that temple 
of stones which we call a cromlech. 

Cromlechs were the altars of the Druids, and were 
so called from a Hebrew word signifying ' to bow \ 
There is a Druidic temple at Toulouse, in France, 
exhibiting many of these curious Druidical stones. 
There is a large, flat stone, ten feet long, six feet wide, 
one foot thick, at St. David's, Pembrokeshire. It is 
called in Cymric ' Lech Lagar y the speaking stone \ 
We may speculate upon the word ' Lich, Lych, Lech ' 

1 The whole forming a ' capital Y chapter ' chapitre ' chapel 
' cancel or ' chancel ' — hence our word, and the sublime judicial 
office of ' Chancellor and ' Chancery \ 



54 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



in this connexion, and the terms * Lich-gate or 
' Lech-gate as also the name of ' Lich-field \ There 
is a porch or gateway, mostly at the entrance of old- 
fashioned churchyards, which is called the ' Lyke- 
Pbrch or ' Litch-Porch ' . Lug, or Luk, is a word 
in the Danish signifying the same as Lyk in the Dutch, 
and Leiche in the German. Thus comes the word 
' Lich-gate \ Lich in the Anglo-Saxon means a ' dead 
body \ See Notes and Queries, vol. ii. p. 4. The 
' Lich-gates ' were as a sort of triumphal arches (Propy- 
Icea) placed before the church, as the outwork called 
the ' Propylon or ' Propylaeum \ was advanced 
before the Egyptian and the Grecian temples. They 
are found, in the form of separate arches, before the 
gates even of Chinese cities, and they are there gener- 
ally called ' triumphal arches \ 

Propylcea is a name of Hecate, Dis, Chronos, or 
the H, to which sinister deity the Propylon or Pro- 
pylceum (as also, properly, the Lych-gate) is dedi- 
cated. Hence its ominous import, Pro, or ' before ', 
the Pylon or passage. Every Egyptian temple has 
its Propylon. The Pyramid also in Nubia has one. 
We refer to the ground plans of the Temples of Den- 
derah, Upper Egypt ; the Temple of Luxor, Thebes ; 
the Temple of Edfou, Upper Egypt ; the Temple of 
Carnac (or Karnak), Thebes. 

Colonel (afterwards General) Vallancey, in the 
fourth volume, p. 80, of his General Works, cited in 
the Celtic Druids, p. 223 (a valuable book by God- 
frey Higgins), says : ' In Cornwall they call it ' (i.e. 
the rocking-stone) ' the Logan-Stone. Borlase, in his 
History of Cornish Antiquities, declares that he does 
not understand the meaning of this term Logan, as 
applied to the Druidical stones. ( Had Dr. Borlase 
been acquainted with the Irish MSS \ significantly 
adds Colonel Vallancey, ' he would have found that 



THE GNOSTIC 'ABRAXAS 



55 



the Druidical oracular stone called Loghan, which yet 
retains its name in Cornwall, is the Irish Logh-oun, 
or stone into which the Druids pretended that the 
Logh, or divine essence, descended when they consulted 
it as an oracle/ Logh in Celtic is the same as Logos 
in the Greek ; both terms mean the Logos (' Word ') 
or the Holy Ghost. 

Sanchoniathon, the Phoenician, says that Ouranus 
contrived, in Boetulia, i stones that moved as having 
life'. Stukeley's Abury, p. 97, may be here referred 
to for further proofs of the mystic origin of these 
stones, and also the Celtic Druids of Godfrey Higgins, 
in contradiction to those who would infer that these 
' poised stones ' simply mark burial-places, or foolish 
conclusions of shallow and incompetent antiquaries. 

The Basilidans were called by the orthodox Docetce, 
or Illusionists. The Deity of the Gnostics was called 
i Abraxas ' in Latin, and 1 Abrasax ' in Greek. Their 
last state, or condition for rescued sensitive entities, 
as they termed souls, was the ' Pleroma or ' Fullness 
of Light \ This agrees precisely with the doctrines 
of the Buddhists or Bhuddists. The regulating, pre- 
siding genius was the Pantheus. The Pythagorean 
record quoted by Porphyry (Vit. Pythag.) states that 
the 1 numerals of Pythagoras were hieroglyphical 
symbols by means whereof he explained ideas con- 
cerning the nature of things'. That these symbols 
were ten in number, the ten original signs of the zodiac, 
and the ten letters of the primeval alphabet, appears 
from Aristotle (Met. vii. 7). ' Some philosophers 
hold ', he says, ' that ideas and numbers are of the 
same nature, and amount to ten in all.' See The 
Gnostics and their Remains, p. 229. 

But to return to the arms of France, which are the 
' Fleurs-de-Lis and to the small representative crea- 
ture (sublime enough, as the farthest-off symbol which 



56 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



they are imagined in their greatness to indicate). 
A Bible presented to Charles the Second, A.D. 869, has 
a miniature of this monarch and his court. His 
throne is terminated with three flowers of the form 
of ' fleurs-de-lis sans pied ' . On his head is a crown 
1 fermee a fleurons d'or, relevez et recourbez d'une 
maniere singuliere ' . Another miniature in the Book 
of Prayers shows him on a throne surmounted by a 
sort of 'fleurs-de-lis sans pied 5 . His crown is of 
' fleurs comme de lis ', and, the robe is fastened with a 
rose, 1 d'ou sortent trois pistils en forme de fleurs- 
de-lis \ His sceptre terminates in a fleur-de-lis.— 
Notes and Queries. 

Sylvanus Morgan, an old-fashioned herald abound- 
ing in suggestive disclosures, has the following : ' Sir 
William Wise having lent to the king, Henry VIII, 
his signet to seal a letter, who having powdered ' 
(semeed, or spotted) ' eremites ' (they were emmets 
— ants) ' engray'd in the seale, the king paused and 
lookit thereat, considering'. We may here query 
whether the field of the coat of arms of Sir William 
Wise was not ' ermine ' ; for several of the families 
of Wise bear this fur, and it is not unlikely that he did 
so also. 

' " Why, how now, Wise ! " quoth the king. " What ! 
hast thou lice here ? " " An', if it like y our majes- 
tie ", quoth Sir William, " a louse is a rich coat ; for 
by giving the louse I part arms with the French king, 
in that he giveth the flonr-de-lice." Whereat the 
king heartily laugh' d, to hear how prettily so byting 
a taunt (namely, proceeding from a prince) was so 
suddenly turned to so pleasaunte a conceit.' — Stani- 
hurst's History of Ireland, in Holinshed's Chron. 
Nares thinks that Shakespeare, who is known to have 
been a reader of Holinshed, took his conceit of the 
f white lowses which do become an old coat well', in 



THE ENGLISH ' BROAD- ARROW > 



57 



The Merry Wives of Windsor, from this anecdote. 
See Heraldic Anomalies, vol. i. p. 204 ; also Lower's 
Curiosities of Heraldry, p. 82 (1845). It may here 
be mentioned, that the mark signifying the royal pro- 
perty (as it is used in France), similarly to the token, 
or symbol, or ' brand ', denoting the royal domain, 
the property, or the sign upon royal chattels (the 
' broad arrow '), as used in England, is the ' Lis or 
the ' Fleur-de-Lis \ The mark by which criminals 
are ' branded ' in France is called the ' Lis — Fleur- 
de-lis'. 

The English ' broad arrow ', the mark or sign of 
the royal property, is variously depicted, similarly to 
the following marks : 



These are the Three Nails of the Passion. In figs. 1 
and 2 they are unmistakably so, with the points down- 
wards. Figs. 3 and 4 have the significant horizontal 
mark which, in the first centuries of Christianity, 
stood for the Second (with feminine meanings) Person 
of the Trinity ; but the points of the spikes (spicce, 
or thorns) are gathered upwards in the centre. In fig. 
5 there are still the three nails ; but a suggestive 
similarity to be remarked in this figure is a disposition 
resembling the crux-ansata — an incessant symbol, al- 
ways reappearing in Egyptian sculptures and hiero- 
glyphics. There is also a likeness to the mysterious 
letter £ Tau ' . The whole first chapter of Genesis 
is said to be contained in this latter emblem — this 
magnificent, all-including ' Tau ' . 

Three bent spikes, or nails, are unmistakably the 




Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 



Fig- 5 



53 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 




same symbol that Belus often holds in his extended 
hand on the Babylonian cylinders, afterwards dis- 
covered by the Jewish cabalists in the points of the 
letter ' Shin \ and by the mediaeval mystics in the 
' Three Nails of the Cross \ — The Gnostics and their 
Remains, Ancient and MeditBval, p. 20S. 

This figure, which is clearly a nail, 
has also characteristics, which will be 
remarked in its upper portion, which 
suggest a likeness to the obelisk, pin, 
spike, upright, or phallus. 

The Hebrew letter ' Shin or 1 Sin \ 
counts for 300 in the Hebraic numeration. 
Each spicUj or spike, may be taken to 
signify 100, or ten tens. We have strong 
hints here of the origin of the decimal system, 
which reigns through the universal laws of compu- 
tation as a natural substratum, basis, or principle. 
This powerful symbol, also, is full of secret 
important meanings. It will be remarked 
as the symbol or figure assigned in the 
formal zodiacs of all countries, whether 
original zodiacs, or whether produced in figure- 
imitations by recognizing tradition. The 
marks or symbols of the zodiacal signs, ' Virgo- 
Scorpio \ are closely similar to each other, with cer- 

' Behold ! I show you a Sisn.' 



Fis 





, — Virgo — Libra — Scorpio — 

The ' Woman Conqueror ' leading the ' Dragon 

The" ' Restored World ' 
or 

' Captivity ' ' Captive * 

tain differences, which we recommend to the judicious 
consideration of close and experienced observers. 
Fig. 8 is the symbol, or hook, of Saturn, the colour 



THE ' BE A USE ANT ' OF THE TEMPLARS 59 



of whom, in the heraldic configuration, is sab., sable, 
or black, divided, party per pale, with the opening 
light of the first crescent moon of the post-diluvian 

Fig. 8 

t — 

.51 

The Templar Banner : the famous 1 Beauseant ' 

world 1 . Fig. 9 is the same grandly mystic banner, 
denominated Beauseant (' Beau-Seant '), revealing a 
whole occult theosophy to the initiate, which the 
leaders of the Templars undoubtedly were. The 

Fig- 9- 




or rather the 
New Moon, 
as thus : j) 



difference beween these two figures, fig. 8 and fig. 9, 
is, that the c fly ' of the ensign marked fig. 9 is bifur- 
cated (or cloven) in the 1 lighted ' part. 

We subjoin the representation of the wondrous 
banner of the ' Poor soldiers of the Temple \ as de- 
picted abundantly on the spandrels of the arches of 
the Temple Church, London. 

1 The Shining Star as the Harbinger in the Moon's Embrace. 
Meaning the Divine Post-diluvian Remission and Reconciliation. 
Thus the sublime Mahometan mythic device or cognisance — the 
Crescent of the New Moon (lying on her back), and the Shining 
Star in this display : 





6o 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Von Hammer's Mystery of Baphomet Revealed con- 
tains much suggestive matter relative to these mys- 




terious supposed dreadful Templars. The Parisian 
f Templiers ' assert that there is a connexion between 
the recent Niskhi letter and the ' Cufic ' characters, 
and that the origin of the secrets of the order of the 
Temple is contemporary with the prevalence of the 
latter alphabet. We here refer to the work entitled 
Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum ; sen, Fr aires Mili- 
tice Tetnpli, qua Gnostici et quidem Ophiani, apostasies, 
idololatrice , et quidem impuritatis convicti per ipsa 
eorum tnonumenta, published in the Mines de V Orient, 
vol. vi. This treatise is illustrated with numerous 
admirably executed copper-plates of magical statuettes, 
architectural ornaments, mystical inscriptions, vases, 
and coins. Amidst these there is a bearded, yet 
female, figure, ' Mete ' {magna, or maxima), whom 
Von Hammer, following Theodosius and others, makes 
the same as the ( Sophia ' of the Ophites. Some 
particulars referring to these subjects are contained 
in The Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Medice- 
val ; although there is an evident betraying of total 
ignorance on the part of the author, throughout his 
book, as to the purpose, meaning, and reality of the 
whole of these remote and mysterious subjects : to 
which he is, however, blindly constantly referring, 
without the merit of even feeling his way. It is well 



THE 'DOZEN WHITE LUCES' 



61 



known that the preservation of Gnostic symbols by 
Freemasons was, and remains so to this day, exceed- 
ingly sedulous. 

We will terminate this part of our long dissertat- 
ion, which commenced with the explanation of the 
descent, or the genealogy, or the generation of the 
famous ' fleurs-de-lis ' of France — the noblest and 
sublimest symbol, in its occult or mysterious meaning, 
which the ' monarch sun ' ever saw displayed to it, 
inexpressibly mean and repellant as the ' Lis ' seems : 
we will finish, we say, thus far, by commenting in a 
very original and unexpected, but strictly corroborat- 
ive, manner upon some words of Shakespeare which 
have hitherto been passed wholly without remark or 
explanation. 

We may premise by recalling that the luce is a pike 
(pic), or Jack : Jac, lace (B and / are complementary 
in this mythic sense), Bacc, Bacche, Bacchus. Shakes- 
peare's well-known lampoon, or satirical ballad, upon 
the name of ' Lucy ' may be cited as illustrative proof 
on this side of the subject : 

Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it. 

The Zodiacal sign for February is the ' fishes \ Now, 
the observances of St. Valentine's Day, which point 
to courtship and to sexual love, or to loving invita- 
tion, bear direct reference to the ' fishes ', in a cer- 
tain sense. The arms of the Lucys — as they are at 
present to be seen, and where we not long since saw 
them, beautifully restored upon the great entrance- 
gates of Charlecote Hall, or Place, near Stratford- 
upon-Avon — are ' three luces or pikes, hauriant, ar- 
gent ' . 

' The dozen white luces ' are observed upon with 
intense family pride by Shallow (Lucy), in The Merry 
Wives of Windsor : 



62 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



' Shallow. It is an old coat. 

1 Evans. The dozen white louses do become an old 
coat well'. The significant part of the passage fol- 
lows to this effect, though deeply hidden in the sly 
art of our knowing, but reticent, Shakespeare: ' I 
agrees well passant 3 (we would here read passim, 
1 everywhere which makes clear sense). ' It is a 
familiar beast to Man, and signifies — love ' (the gene- 
rative act). — Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. i. 

We commend the above" history of the ' Fleur-de- 
Lis' to the thoughtful attention of our reader, because 
he will find under it the whole explanation of the 
arms of France. And yet, although the above is ail- 
essentially 1 feminine ', this is the country that im- 
ported amidst its Frankish or Saxon progenitors 
(Clodio, the ' long-haired to the example, who first 
passed the Rhine and brought his female ' ultramarine ' 
to supersede and replace, in blazon, the martial, manly 
' carmine ' or ' gules ' of the Gauls) — this is the coun- 
try that adopted and maintains ' la Lot Salique 




CHAPTER THE NINTH 



SACRED FIRE 

The appearance of God to mortals seems always to 
have been in brightness and great glory, whether 
He was angry and in displeasure, or benign and kind. 
These appearances are often mentioned in Scripture. 
When God appeared on Mount Sinai, it is said ' The 
Lord descended upon it in Fire ' (Exod. xix. 18). 
And when Moses repeats the history of this to the 
children of Israel, he says ' The Lord spake unto 
you out of the midst of the Fire ' (Dent. iv. 12). So 
it was when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses 
in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush : ( The 
bush burned with Fire, and the bush was not consumed ' 
(Exod. iii. 3). The appearances of the Angel of 
God's presence, or that Divine Person who represented 
God, were always in brightness ; or, in other words, 
the Shechinah was always surrounded with glory. 
This seems to have given occasion to those of old to 
imagine fire to be what God dwelt in. 

' Ipse ' (Darius) ' solem Mithren, sacrumque et 
seternum invocans Ignem, ut illis dignam vetere gloria 
majoremque monumentis fortitudinem inspirarent.' 
— Q. Curtius, 1. iv. c. 13. 

Whether it was that any fire preceded from God, 
and burnt up the oblation in the first sacrifices, as 
some ingenious men have conjectured, we know not. 
It is certain that in after ages this was the case. We are 
sure that a fire from the Lord consumed upon the altar 
the burnt-offering of Aaron (Lev. ix. 24) ; and so it did 



64 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the sacrifice of Gideon, ' both the flesh and the un- 
leavened cakes ' (Judg. vi. 21). When David * built 
an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings 
and peace-offerings, and called upon the Lord, He 
answered him from heaven by Fire, upon the altar 
of burnt-offerings ' (j Chron. xxi. 26). The same 
thing happened at the dedication of Solomon's temple : 
' The fire came down from heaven, and consumed 
the burnt-offering and the sacrifices, and the glory • 
of the Lord filled the house ' (2 Chron. vii. 1). And 
much about a hundred years afterwards, when Elijah 
made that extraordinary sacrifice in proof that Baal 
was no god, ' The Fire of the Lord fell and consumed 
the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, 
and the dust, and licked up the water that was in 
the trench ' (1 Kings xviii. 38). And if we go back 
long before the times of Moses, as early as Abraham's 
days, we meet with an instance of the same sort : 
' It came to pass that when the sun went down, and 
it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning 
lamp, that passed between these pieces ' (Gen. xv. 17). 

The first appearance of God, then, being in glory — 
or, which is the same thing, in light or fire — and He 
showing His acceptance of sacrifices in so many in- 
stances, by consuming them with fire, hence it was that 
the Eastern people, and particularly the Persians, 
fell into the worship of fire itself, or rather they con- 
ceived fire to be the symbol of God's presence, and 
they worshipped God in, or by, fire. From the 
Assyrians, or Chaldaeans, or Persians, this worship 
was propagated southwards among the Egyptians, 
and westward among the Greeks ; and by them it 
was brought into Italy. The Greeks were wont to 
meet together to worship in their Prytaneia, and there 
they consulted for the public good ; and there was a 
constant fire kept upon the altar, which was dignified 



VESTAL FIRES 65 

by the name of Vesta by some. The fire itself was 
properly Vesta ; and so Ovid : 

Nec te aliud Vestam, quam vivam intelligere flammam. 

The Prytaneia were the atria of the temples, wherein 
a fire was kept that was never suffered to go out. 
On the change in architectural forms from the pyramidal 
(or the horizontal) to the obeliscar (or the upright, or 
vertical), the flames were transferred from the altars, 
or cubes, to the summits of the typical uprights, 
or towers ; or to the tops of the candles, such as we 
see them used now in Catholic worship, and which are 
called ' tapers from their tapering or pyramidal 
form, and which, wherever they are seen or raised, are 
supposed always to indicate the divine presence or 
influence. This, through the symbolism that there 
is in the living light, which is the last exalted show 
of fluent or of inflamed brilliant matter, passing off 
beyond into the unknown and unseen world of celestial 
light (or occult fire), to which all the forms of things 
tend, and in which even idea itself passes from recog- 
nition as meaning, and evolves — spiring, as all flame 
does, to escape and to wing away. 

Vesta, or the fire, was worshipped in circular temples, 
which were the images or the miniatures, of the 1 tem- 
ple 1 of the world, with its dome, or cope, of stars. 
It was in the atria of the temples, and in the presence 
of, and before the above-mentioned lights, that the 
forms of ceremonial worship were always observed. 
It is certain that Vesta was worshipped at Troy ; 
and iEneas brought her into Italy : 

manibus vittas, Vestamque potentem, 
iEternumque adytis effert penetralibus Ignem. 

— jEneid ii. 296. 

Numa settled an order of Virgin Priestesses, whose 

F 



66 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



business and care it was constantly to maintain the 
holy fire. And long before Numa's days, we find it 
not only customary, but honourable, among the 
Albans to appoint the best-born virgins to be priestesses 
of Vesta, and to keep up the constant, unextinguished 
fire. 

When Virgil speaks (Mneid iv. 200) of Iarbas, in 
Africa, as building a hundred temples and a hundred 
altars, he says : 

vigilemque sacraverat Ignem, 
Excubias Divum seternas, 

that he had ' consecrated a fire that never went out \ 
And he calls these temples and these lights, or this 
fire, the 1 perpetual watches or ' watch-lights or 
proof of the presence, of the gods. By which ex- 
pressions he means, that places and things were con- 
stantly protected, and solemnized where such lights 
burned, and that the celestials, or angel-defenders, 
' camped as it were, and were sure to be met with 
thickly, where these flames upon the altars, and these 
torches or lights about the temples, invited them and 
were studiously and incessantly maintained. 

Thus the custom seems to have been general from 
the earliest antiquity to maintain a constant fire, as 
conceiving the gods present there. And this was not 
only the opinion of the inhabitants in Judaea, but it 
extended all over Persia, Greece, Italy, Egypt, and 
most other nations of the world. 

Porphyry imagined that the reason why the most 
ancient mortals kept up a constant, ever-burning 
fire in honour of the immortal Gods, was because 
Fire was most like the Gods. He says that the ancients 
kept an unextinguished fire in their temples to the 
Gods, because it was most like them. Fire was not 
like the Gods, but it was what they appeared in to 



ORIGIN OF ' FIRE-WORSHIP ' 



67 



mortals. And so the true God always appeared in 
brightness and glory, yet no one would say that bright- 
ness was most like the true God, but was most like 
the Shechinah, in which God appeared. And hence 
the custom arose of keeping up an unextinguished 
fire in the ancient temples. 

Vesta is properly an Oriental word, derived from 
the Hebrew tya, As— ' Fire \ Thence the word 
Astarte, in the Phoenician dialect. The signification 
of the term is the same as the irvp acr/3ecrTov y the ignis 
cetemuSy the perpetual fire itself. They that wor- 
shipped either Vesta or Vulcan, or the master-power 
of nature which is known under those names, were 
properly Fire-worshippers. 

God, then, being wont to appear in Fire, and being 
conceived to dwell in Fire, the notion spread univer- 
sally, and was universally admitted. First, then, it 
was not at all out of the way to think of engaging in 
friendship with God by the same means as they con- 
tracted friendship with one another. And since they 
to whom God appeared saw Him appear in Fire, and 
they acquainted others with such His appearances, 
He was conceived to dwell in Fire. By degrees, 
therefore, the world came to be over-curious in the 
fire that was constantly to be kept up, and in things to 
be sacrificed ; and they proceeded from one step to 
another, till at length they filled up the measure of 
their aberration, which was in reality instigated by their 
zeal, and by their intense desire to mitigate the dis- 
pleasure of their divinities — for religion was much 
more intense as a feeling in early days — by passing 
into dreadful ceremonies in regard to this fire, which 
they reverenced as the last possible physical form 
of divinity, not only in its grandeur and power, but also 
in its purity. It arose from this view that human 
sacrifices came to be offered to the deities in many 



68 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



parts of the world, particularly in Phoenicia, and in 
the colonies derived from thence into Africa and 
other places. In the intensity of their minds, children 
were sacrificed by their parents, as being the best 
and dearest oblation that could be made, and the 
strongest arguments that nothing ought to be with- 
held from God. This was expiation for that sad 
result, the consequence of the original curse, issuing 
from the fatal curiosity concerning the bitter fruit of 
that forbidden ' Tree 

whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, 

according to Milton. That peculiar natural sense of 
shame in all its forms lesser and larger, and with all 
the references inseparably allied to propagation in 
all its multitudinous cunning (so to speak), wherever 
the condemned material tissues reach, puzzled the 
thoughtful ancients as to its meaning. This they 
considered the convicted ' Adversary or Lucifer, 
' Lord of light ' — that is, material Light, ' Eldest 
Son of the Morning \ Morning, indeed! dawning 
with its light from behind that forbidden Tree of the 
Knowledge of Good and Evil. What is this shame, 
urged the philosophers, this reddening, however good 
and beautiful, and especially the ornament of the 
young and inexperienced and of children, who are 
newest from the real, glowing countenance of Deity, 
with the bloom of the first angelic word scarcely yet 
fading from off their cherub faces, gradually darken- 
ing and hardening in the degradation and iniquity 
of being here as presences in this world, although 
the most glorious amidst the forms of flesh ? What 
is this shame, which is the characteristic singly of 
human creatures ? All other creatures are sinless in 



HUMAN SALVATION 



69 



this respect, and know not the feeling of that — cor- 
rectly looked at — strange thing which men call 
' shame something which is not right that the sun 
even should see, and therefore stirring the blood, and 
reddening the face, and confusing the speech, and 
causing man to hang down his head, and to hide 
himself, as if guilty of something * even as our guilty 
first parents, having lost the unconsciousness of their 
child-like, innocent first state — that of sinless virgin- 
ity — hid themselves and shunned their own light in 
the umbrage of Paradise, all at once convicted to the 
certainty that they must hide, because they were 
exposed, and that they had themselves broken that 
original intention regarding them, 
fe* Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and 
forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven \ 

That is, the innocent children should come up for 
salvation, who, though suffering under the mortal 
liability incurred by all flesh in that first sin (and 
incident in the first fall, which has empoisoned and 
cursed all nature), are yet free by the nature of their 
ungrown possibility, and from their unconsciousness 
of it. They know not the shame of the condition 
adult, and therefore they bear not the badge of men, 
and are not of this world really, but of another world. 

To recur for a moment to the theory of human 
sacrifices which once largely prevailed. Interwoven 
inseparably with the forms of architecture from the 
earliest times, proof of which we see constantly in 
classical buildings particularly, and in the Italian 
modifications displayed in the cities of Europe, was 
the habit of exposing as talismans the members (and 
particularly the heads) of human sacrifices. This is 
observable in the innumerable masks (or heads full- 
faced) placed on the keystones of arches or portals. 
They are either deified mortals or demigods. Some- 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



times, but very rarely (because it is a sinister pallad- 
ium), the head of Medusa is seen. Exposure of the 
heads of criminals on town-gates, over bridges, or 
over arches, follows the same idea, as ranging in the 
list of protecting, protesting, or appealing Palladia, 
which are supposed to possess the same objurgating 
or propitiating power as the wild, winged creatures — 
children of the air — affixed in penitential, magic 
brand or exposure on the doors of barns, or on the 
outside of rustic buildings/ All this is ceremonial 
sacrifice, addressed to the harmful gods, and meant 
occultly and entreatingly for the eyes of the observant, 
but invisible, wandering angels, who move through 
the world — threading unseen the ways of men, and 
unwitted of by them, and most abundant and most 
active there where the mother of all of them is in the 
ascendant with her influences ; or when Night is 
abroad, throned in her cope of stars — letters, from 
their first judiciary arrangement in the heavens, 
spelling out continually new astrological combinat- 
ions. For Astrology was the mother, as she was the 
precursor, of Astronomy, and was once a power ; 
into whatever mean roads the exercise of the art of her 
servants has strayed now, in unworthy and indign 
divination, and in the base proffer of supposed Gipsy 
arts — ministration become ridiculous (or made so), 
which was once mighty and sublime. 

The pyramidal or triangular form which Fire as- 
sumes in its ascent to heaven is in the monolithic 
typology used to signify the great generative power. 
We have only to look at Stonehenge, Ellora, the Babel- 
towers of Central America, the gigantic ruins scattered 
all over Tartary and India, to see how gloriously they 
symbolized the majesty of the Supreme. To these 
uprights, obelisks, or lithoi, of the old world, including 
the Bethel , or Jacob's Pillar, or Pillow, raised in the 



ASCENDING AND DESCENDING ' SIGNS ' 71 

Plain of 1 Luz we will add, as the commemorative 
or reminding shape of the fire, the Pyramids of Egypt, 
the Millenarius, Gnomon, Mete-Stone, or Mark, called 
' London Stone all Crosses raised at the junction 
of four roads, all Market-Crosses, the Round Towers 
of Ireland, and, in all the changeful aspects of their 
genealogy, all spires and towers, in their grand hierogly- 
phic proclamation, all over the world. All these 
are Phalli, and express a sublime meaning. 

(r) Aries, (0) Taurus, (n) Gemini, (s>) Cancer, 
(&) Leo, (up) Virgo, are the first six 'Signs'; and 
they collectively (in their annual succession) form the 
' Macrocosmos ' of the Cabalists. Then succeeds the 
' turning-point ' balances or 1 nave ' (navel), of 
the astronomical wheel, represented by the sign 
1 Libra ' (^=), which, be it remembered, was added by 
the imaginative (and therefore practically inventive) 
Greeks. The foregoing, up to ' Libra represent 
the 1 ascending signs or six of the spokes, so to 
speak, of the annual zodiacal wheel, circling to the 
zenith or vertex. The last six 1 Signs ' of the zodiac 
are called 1 descending signs and they are the sinister, 
autumnal, or changing, in reverse, monthly spaces, 
each of thirty degrees, and again comprising six radii 
of this celestial wheel, or this ' Ezekiel's Wheel'. 
The turning-point is ' Virgo-Scorpio which, until 
separated in the mythical interruption from without at 
the ' junction-point ' between ascent and descent, 
were the same ' single sign ' . The latter half (or left 
wing of this grand zodiacal 4 army or ' host of heaven 
drawn up in battle array, and headed — as, by a figure, 
we shall choose to say — by the ' Archangel Michael 
or the Sun, at the centre, or in the 4 champion ; , or 
' conquering point ') is called by the Cabalists — and 
therefore by the Rosicrucians — the abstract ' Micro- 
cosmos '—in which ' Microcosm or 1 Little World 



72 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



in opposition to the ' Macrocosm or ' Great World \ 
is to be found ' Man \ as produced in it from the 
operations from above, and to be saved in the t Great 
Sacrifice ' (Crucifixion- Act), the phenomena of the 
being (Man) taking place ' in the mythic return of the 
world'. All this is incomprehensible, except in the 
strange mysticism of the Gnostics and the Cabalists ; 
and the whole theory requires a key of explanation 
to render it intelligible ; which key is only darkly 
referred to as possible, but refused absolutely, by these 
extraordinary men, as not permissible to be disclosed. 
As they, however, were very fond of diagrams and 
mystic figures, of which they left many in those rarities 
(mostly ill-executed, but each wonderfully suggestive) 
called '.Gnostic gems ',we will supply a seeming elucid- 
ation of this their astrological assumption of 4 what 
was earliest ' ; for which see the succeeding figure. 

Libra (the Balances) leads again off as the 
' hinge-point/ introducing the six winter signs, which 
are: (=2=) Libra again, (m) Scorpio, (t) Sagittarius, 
(vr) Capricornus, (ss) Aquarius, and (x) Pisces. 



Fig. 12 (A) * Ezekiel's Wheel ' 





Macrocosmos 
(ascending) 



8.q. [o li. 12, 



Microcosmos (descending) 



Turning-point — Libra. (The sign ' Libra was added 
by the Greeks.) 

The first six signs, or ascending signs, are repre- 



MYSTERIES OF THE 'CROSS' 



73 



13 



sented by the celestial perpendicular, or de- 
scending ray, as thus : 

The last six signs, or descending signs, are Fi 
represented by the terrestrial ground-line, or 
horizontal, or ' equatorial ' (symbol or sigma), 
as thus : 

The union of these (at the intersection of these rays) 
at the junction-point, or middle point, forms the 
' Cross as thus : 

Fig. 15 (B) * Cross ' 



Fig. 14 



(C) 



W 

Fig. 16 




Fig. 17 



Fig. 18 



Fig. 19 



In figure C, the union of fig. 16 and fig. 17 forms 
the cross. Fig. 18 is the mundane circle. Fig. 19 
is the astronomical cross upon the mundane circle. 
The union of fig. 18, fig. 17, and fig. 16, in this re- 
spective order, gives the crux-ansata, so continual 
in all the Egyptian sculptures, which mark or sign 
is also the symbol of the Planet Venus, as below. 



Fig. 20 : The Crux Ansata Fig. 21: Mark of the Planet Venus 

Their origin is thus traced clearly to the same original 
meanings, which reappear under all sorts of disguises, 
and are varied in innumerable ingenious ways, in all 



74 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the mythologies — incessantly disclosing, and inviting, 
and as continually evading and escaping discovery. 
This abstruse mark particularly abounds in the 
Egyptian temples, where every object and every 
figure presents it. Its real meaning is, however, 
intended to be buried in profound darkness. 

In regard to the mysteries implied in the Christian 
Cross, the schismatics contended (ist) ' that Christ, 
alive upon the cross, humbled Himself, usque ad in- 
ferni tremenda tormenta, even unto the dreadful tor- 
ments of heir. (Paget's Catech. Latin.) (2nd) 'En- 
dured for a time those torments, qualis reprobi in 
ceternum sensuri sunt, which the reprobates shall 
everlastingly suffer in hell \ (Pise, in Luc. xii. 10.) 
' Even despaired of God's mercy, finding God, at this 
time, Non patrem sed tyrannum, not a Father, but a 
Tyrant : and overcame despair by despair ; death by 
death ; hell by hell ; and Satan by Satan ' (Ferus in 
Matth. 27) : ' suffered actually all the torments of 
hell for our redemption, and descended into the heaviest 
that hell could yield ; endured the torments of hell, the 
second death, abjection from God, and was made a 
curse ; that is, had the bitter anguish of God's wrath in 
his soul and body, which is the fire that shall never 
be quenched' . — Faith and Doctrine (Thomas Rogers), 
London, 1629. Jacob Bohmen produces some of 
these most stringent and dark shades in his profound 
mysticism — although essentially Christian. 

It may be here distinctly mentioned that it is a 
great mistake to suppose any of the Egyptian hier- 
oglyphics tell the story of that most profound and 
most ancient religion. There are various series of 
hieroglyphics, more or less reserved, but the real 
beliefs of the Egyptian Priests were never (indeed, 
they dared not so have been) hazarded in sigma, or 
writing, or hieroglyphic of any kind — being forbidden 



HIEROGLYPHICS 



75 



to be spoken, still more written. Consequently all 
supposed readings of hieroglyphics are guesswork only 
— implying earnest and plausible but mistaken effort 
alone. 



CHAPTER THE TENTH 



FIRE-THEOSOPHY OF THE PERSIANS 

The Fire-Philosophers, or Philosophi per ignem, were 
a fanatical sect of philosophers, who appeared towards 
the close of the sixteenth century. They made a 
figure in almost all the countries of Europe. They 
declared that the intimate essences of natural things 
were only to be known by the trying efforts of fire, 
directed in a chemical process. The Theosophists 
also insisted that human reason was a dangerous and 
deceitful guide ; that no real progress could be made 
in knowledge or in religion by it ; and that to all 
vital — that is, supernatural — purpose it was a vain 
thing. They taught that divine and supernatural 
illumination was the only means of arriving at truth. 
Their name of Paracelsists was derived from Para- 
celsus, the eminent plrysician and chemist, who was 
the chief ornament of this extraordinary sect. In 
England, Robert Flood, or Fludd, was their great 
advocate and exponent. Rivier, who wrote in France ; 
Severinus, an author of Denmark ; Kunrath, an emin- 
ent plrysician of Dresden ; and Daniel Hoffmann, 
Professor of Divinity in the University of Helmstadt 
— have also treated largely on Paracelsus and on his 
system. 

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus was 
born in 1493, at Einsiedeln, a small town of the Canton 
of Schwitz, distant some leagues from Zurich. Having 
passed a troubled, migratory, and changeful life, this 
great chemist, and very original thinker, died on the 

76 



THEOPH RA S T US PARACELSUS 



77 



24th of September 1541, in the Hospital of St. Stephen, 
in the forty-eighth year of his age. His works may 
be enumerated as follow : 1. The German editions : 
Basil, 1575, in 8vo ; lb. x, 1589-90, in 10 vols. 4to ; 
and Strasbourg, 1603-18, in 4 vols, folio. 2. The 
Latin editions : Opera Omnia Medico-chymico-chir- 
urgica, Francfort, 1603, in 10 vols. 4to ; and Geneva, 
1658, in 3 vols, folio. 3. The French editions : La 
Grand Chirnrgerie de Paracelse, Lyons, 1593 and 
1603, in 4-to ; and Montbeliard, 1608, in 8vo. See 
Adelung, Histoire de la Folie Humaine, torn, vii ; 
Biographie Universelle, article ' Paracelse ' ; and 
Sprengel, Histoire Pragmatiqiie de la Medecine y torn. hi. 

' Akin to the school of the ancient Fire-Believers, 
and of the magnetists of a later period says the 
learned Dr. Ennemoser, in his History of Magic (most 
ably rendered into English by William Howitt), ' of 
the same cast as these speculators and searchers into 
the mysteries of nature, drawing from the same well, 
are the Theosophists of the sixteenth and seventeenth, 
centuries. These practised chemistry, by which they 
asserted that they could explore the profoundest 
secrets of nature. As they strove, above all earthly 
knowledge, after the divine, and sought the divine 
light and fire, through which all men can acquire the 
true wisdom, they were called the Fire-Philosophers 
{philosophi per ignem). The most distinguished of 
these are Theophrastus Paracelsus, Adam von Boden, 
Oswald Croll ; and, later, Valentine Weigel, Robert 
Flood, or Fludd, Jacob Bohmen, Peter Poiret, etc/ 
Under this head we may also refer to the Medico-surgical 
Essays of Hemmann, published at Berlin in 1778 ; 
and Pfaff's Astrology. 

As a great general principle, the Theosophists called 
the soul a fire, taken from the eternal ocean of light. 

In regard to the supernatural — using the word in 



78 



THE R0S1CRUC1ANS 



its widest sense — it may be said that ' all the difficulty 
in admitting the strange things told us lies in the non- 
admission of an internal causal world as absolutely 
real : it is said, in intellectually admitting, because 
the influence of the arts proves that men's feelings 
always have admitted, and do still admit, this reality ' . 

The Platonic philosophy of vision is, that it is the 
view of objects really existing in interior light, which 
assume form, not according to arbitrary laws, but 
according to the state of mind. This interior light, 
if we understand Plato, unites with exterior light in 
the eye, and is thus drawn into a sensual or imaginative 
activity • but when the outward light is separated, 
it reposes in its own serene atmosphere. It is, then, 
in this state of interior repose, that the usual class of 
religions, or what are called inspired visions occur. 
It is the same light of eternity so frequently alluded 
to in books that treat of mysterious subjects ; the 
light revealed to Pimander, Zoroaster, and all the 
sages of the East, as the emanation of the spiritual 
sun. Bohmen writes of it in his Divine Vision or 
Contemplation, and Molinos in his Spiritual Guide — ■ 
whose work is the ground of Quietism : Quietism 
being the foundation of the religion of the people 
called Friends or Quakers, as also of the other mystic 
or meditative sects. We enlarge from a very learned, 
candid, and instructive book upon the Occult Sciences. 

Regard Fire, then, with other eyes than with those 
soulless, incurious ones, with which thou hast looked 
upon it as the most ordinary thing. Thou hast for- 
gotten what it is — or rather thou hast never known. 
Chemists are silent about it ; or may we not say that it 
is too loud for them ? Therefore shall they speak 
fearfully of it in whispers. Philosophers talk of it 
as anatomists discourse of the constituents (or the 
parts) of the human body — as a piece of mechairism, 



THE FIGURE OF 'MAN* 



79 



wondrous though it be. Such the wheels of the clock, 
say they in their ingenious expounding of the ' whys ' 
and the 1 wherefores ' (and the mechanics and the 
mathematics) of this mysterious thing, with a super- 
natural soul in it, called world. Such is the chain, 
such are the balances, such the larger and the smaller 
mechanical forces ; such the ■ Time-blood ', as it were, 
that is sent circulating through it ; such is the striking, 
with an infinity of bells. It is made for man, this world , 
and it is greatly like him — that is mean, they would 
add. And they do think it, if they dare add their 
thinkings. But is this all ? Is this the sum of that 
casketed lamp of the human body — thine own body, 
thou unthinking world's machine — thou Man ! Or, 
in the fabric of this clay lamp (lacquered in thy man's 
Imperial splendours), burneth there not a Light ? 
Describe that, ye Doctors of Physics ! Unwind the 
starry limbs of that phenomenon, ye heavy-browed 
doctorial wielders of the scalpel — useful, however, 
as ye be, in that ' upholstery warehouse ' of nature 
to which bodies and their make be referred by the 
materialists as the godless origin of everything. Touch 
at its heart, ye dissectors of fibres and of valves ; of 
sinews and of leaves (hands, perchance) ; of the 
vein-work, of the muscles, as bark-integument ; of 
the trunk ! Split and pare, as with steel tools and 
wedge, this portent, this ' Tree ' (human though it 
be), round which ye cluster to -examine, about which 
ye gather, with your ' persuasions ' to wind into the 
innermost secret of. Cyclops — one-eyed and savage 
— break into meaning this portent, Man, on your 
science- wheels. 

Note the goings of the Fire, as he creepeth, ser- 
pentineth, riseth, slinketh, broadeneth. Note him 
reddening, glowing, whitening. Tremble at his face, 
dilating ; at the meaning that is growing into it, to 



So 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



you. See that spark from the blacksmith's anvil 
— struck, as an insect, out of a sky containing a whole 
cloud of such. Rare locusts, of which Pharaoh and 
the Cities of the Plain read of old the secret ! One, 
two, three sparks ; dozens come : faster and faster 
the fiery squadrons follow, until, in a short while, a 
whole possible army of that hungry thing for battle, 
for food for it — Fire — glances up ; but is soon warned 
in again — lest acres should glow in the growing 
advance. Think that this thing is bound as in matter- 
chains. Think that he is outside of all things, and 
deep in the inside of all things ; and that thou and 
thy world are only the thing between ; and that out- 
side and inside are both identical, couldst thou under- 
stand the supernatural truths ! Reverence Fire (for 
its meaning), and tremble at it ; though in the Earth 
it be chained, and the foot of the Archangel Michael 
— like upon the Dragon — be upon it ! Avert the 
face from it, as the Magi turned, dreading, and (as 
the Symbol) before it bowed askance. So much for 
this great thing— Fire ! 

t Observe the multiform shapes of fire ; the flame- 
wreaths, the spires, the stars, the spots, the cascades, 
and the mighty falls of it ; where the roar, when it 
grows high in Imperial masterdom, is as that of 
Niagara. Think what it can do, what it is. Watch 
the trail of sparks, struck, as in that spouting arch, 
from the metal shoes of the trampling horse. It is as 
a letter of the great alphabet. The familiar London 
streets, even, can give thee the Persian's God : though 
in thy pleasures, and in thy commerce-operations, 
thou so oft forgettest thine own God. Whence liber- 
ated are those sparks ? as stars, afar off, of a whole 
sky of flame ; sparks deep down in possibility, though 
close to us ; great in their meaning, though small in 
their show; as distant single ships of whole fiery 



FIRE-WORSHIP 



81 



fleets ; animate children of, in thy human concep- 
tion, a dreadful, but, in reality, a great world, of 
which thou knowest nothing. They fall, foodless, 
on the rejecting, barren, and (on the outside) the 
coldest stone. But in each stone, flinty and chilly 
as the outside is, is a heart of fire, to strike at which 
is to bid gush forth the waters, as it were, of very Fire, 
like waters of the rock ! Truly, out of sparks can be 
displayed a whole acreage of fireworks. Forests can 
be conceived of flame — palaces of the fire ; grandest 
things — soul-things — last things — all things ! 

Wonder no longer, then, if, rejected so long as an 
idolatry, the ancient Persians and their masters the 
Magi — concluding that they saw ' All ' in this super- 
naturally magnificent element — fell down and wor- 
shipped it ; making of it the visible representation 
of the very truest ; but yet, in man's speculation, 
and in his philosophies — nay, in his commonest 
reason — impossible God : God being everywhere, and 
in us, and, indeed, us, in the God-lighted man ; and 
impossible to be contemplated or known outside — 
being All ! 

Lights and flames, and the torches, as it were, of 
fire (all fire in this world, the last background on 
which all things are painted), may be considered as 
' lancets 1 of another world — the last world : circles, 
enclosed by the thick walls (which, however, by the 
fire are kept from closing) of this world. As fire 
waves and brandishes, will the walls of this world 
wave, and, as it were, undulate from about it. In 
smoke and disruption, or combustion of matter, we 
witness a phenomenon of the burning as of the edges 
of the matter-rings of this world, in which world is 
fire, like a spot ; that dense and hard thing, matter, 
holding it in. Oxygen, which is the finest of air, 
and is the means of the quickest burning out, or the 



82 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



supernatural (in this world) exhilaration of animal 
life, or extenuation of the Solid ; and above all, the 
heightening of the capacity of the Human, as being 
the quintessence of matter : this oxygen is the thing 
which feeds fire the most overwhelming. Nor would 
the specks and spots and stars of fire stop in this 
dense world-medium, in this tissue or sea of things — 
could it farther and farther fasten upon and devour 
the solids : eating, as it were, through them. But 
as this thick world is a thing the thickest, it presses 
out, thrusts, or gravitates upon, and stifles, in its 
too great weight * and conquers not only that liveliest, 
subtlest, thinnest element of the solids, the finest 
air, by whatever chemical name — oxygen, azote, azone, 
or what not — it may be called ; which, in fact, is 
merely the nomenclature of its composition, the nam- 
ing of the ingredients which make the thing (but not 
the thing). The denseness of the world not only 
conquers this, we repeat ; but, so to figure it, matter 
stamps upon, effaces, and treads out fire : which, 
else, would burn on, back, as in the beginning of things, 
or into itself — consuming, as in its great revenge of 
any thing being created other than it, all the mighty 
worlds which, in Creation, were permitted out of it. 
This is the teaching of the ancient Fire-Philosophers 
(re-established and restored, to the days of compre- 
hension of them, in the conclusions of the Rosicrucians, 
or Illuminaii, of later times), who claimed to have 
discovered the Eternal Fire, or to have found out 
' God ' in the ' Immortal Light \ 

There are all grades or gradations of the density of 
matter ; but it all coheres by the one law of gravitat- 
ion. Now, this gravitation is mistaken for a force 
of itself, when it is nothing but the sympathy, or the 
taking away of the supposed thing between two other 
things. It is sympathy (or appetite) seeking its food, 



THE NATURE OF FIRE 



83 



or as the closing-together of two like things. It is 
not because one mass of matter is more ponderable 
or attracting than another (out of our senses, and in 
reality), but that they are the same, with different 
amounts of affection, and that like seeks like, not 
recognizing or knowing that between. Now, this 
thing which is, as it were, slipped between, and which 
we strike into show of itself, or into fire — surprised 
and driven out of its ambush — is Fire. It is as the 
letter by which matter spells itself out — so to speak. 

Now, matter is only to be finally forced asunder by 
heat ; flame being the bright, subtle something which 
comes last, and is the expansion, fruit, crown, or 
glory of heat : it is the vivid and visible soul, essence, 
and spirit of heat — the last evolvement before rend- 
ing and before the forcible closing again of all the centre- 
speeding weights, or desires, of matter. Flame is 
as the expanding-out (or even exploding) flower to 
this growing thing, heat ; it is as the bubble of it — 
the fruit (to which before we have likened it), or seed, 
in the outside Hand upon it. Given the supernatural 
Flora, heat is as the gorgeous plant, and flame the 
glorying flower ; and as growth is greater out of the 
greater matrix, or matter of growing, so the thicker 
the material of fire (as we may roughly figure it, 
though we hope we shall be understood), so the stronger 
shall the fire be, and of necessity the fiercer will it be 
perceived to be — result being according to power. 

Thus we get more of fire — that is, heat — out of the 
hard things : there being more of the thing Fire in 
them. 

Trituration, mechanical division, multiplication, cut- 
ting up, precipitating, or compounding, are states 
into which the forces outside can place matter, with- 
out searching into and securing its bond, and gather- 
ing up (into hand off it) its chains, and mastering it. 



8 4 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



These changes can be wrought in matter, and, as it 
were, it can be taken in pieces ; and all this dissolut- 
ion of it may be effected without our getting as at 
the fire-blood of our subject. 

' But Fire disjoints, as it were, all the hinges of the 
house — laps out the coherence of it — sets ablaze the 
dense thing, matter — makes the dark metals run like 
waters of light — conjures the black devils out of the 
minerals, and, to our astonishment, shows them 
much libelled, blinding, 'angel-white ! By Fire we 
can lay our hand upon the solids, part them, powder 
them, melt them, fine them, drive them out to more 
and more delicate and impalpable texture — firing 
their invisible molecules, or imponderables, into cloud, 
into mist, into gas : out of touch, into hearing ; out 
of hearing, into seeing ; out of seeing into smelling ; 
out of smelling, into nothing — into real Nothing 
— not even into the last blue sky. These are the potent 
operations of Fire — the crucible into which we can 
cast all the worlds, and find them, in their last evolu- 
tion, not even smoke. These are physical and scien- 
tific facts which there can be no gainsaying — which 
were seen and found out long ago, ages ago, in the 
reveries first, and then in the practice of the great 
Magnetists, and those who were called the Fire- 
Philosophers, of whom we have spoken before. 

What is that mysterious and inscrutable operation, 
the striking fire from flint ? Familiar as it is, who 
remarks it ? Where, in that hardest, closest pressing 
together of matter — where the granulation compresses, 
shining even in its hardness, into the solidest lamince 
of cold, darkest blue, and streaky, core-like, agate- 
resembling white — -lie the seeds of fire, spiritual flame- 
seeds, to the so stony fruit ? In what folds of the 
flint, in the block of it — -in what invisible recess — 
speckled and spotted in what tissue— crouch the fire- 



OPERATIONS OF FIRE 



85 



sparks ? — to issue, in showers, on the stroke of iron — 
on the so sudden clattering (as of the crowbars of 
man) on its stony doors : Stone caving the thing 
Fire, unseen as its sepulchre ; Stroke warning the 
magical thing forth. Whence comes that trail of the 
fire from the cold bosom of the hard, secret, unex- 
ploding flint ? — children as from what hard, rocky 
breast ; yet hiding its so sacred, sudden fire-birth ! 
Who — and what science-philosopher — can explain this 
wondrous darting forth of the hidden something, 
which he shall try in vain to arrest, but which like a 
spirit, escapes him ? If we ask what fire is, of the 
men of science, they are at fault. They will tell us 
that it is a phenomenon, that their vocabularies can 
give no further account of it. They will explain to 
us that all that can be said of it is, that it is a last 
affection of matter, to the results of which (in the world 
of man) they can only testify, but of whose coming 
and of whose going — of the place from which it comes, 
and the whereabout to which it goeth — they are 
entirely ignorant — and would give a world to know ! 

The foregoing, however feebly expressed, are the 
views of the famous Rosicrucians respecting the 
nature of this supposed familiar, but yet puzzling, 
thing — Fire. 

We will proceed to some of their further mystic 
reveries. They are very singular. 

But the consideration of these is exceedingly abstract, 
and difficult. The whole subject is abstruse in the 
highest degree. 

In regard to the singular name of the Rosicrucians, 
it may be here stated that the Chemists, according to 
their arcana, derive the Dew from the Latin Ros, and 
in the figure of a cross ( + ) they trace the three letters 
which compose the word Lux, Light. Mosheim is 
positive as to the accuracy of his information. 



CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH 



IDEAS OF THE ROSIORUCIANS AS TO THE CHARACTER 

OF FIRE 

Spark surrenders out of the world, when it disappears 
to us, in the universal ocean of Invisible Fire. That 
is its disappearance. It quits us in the supposed 
light, but to it really darkness — as fire-born, the last 
level of all — to reappear in the true light, which is to 
us darkness. This is hard to understand. But, as 
the real is the direct contrary of the apparent, so that 
which shows as light to us is darkness in the super- 
natural ; and that which is light to the supernatural 
is darkness to us : matter being darkness, and soul 
light. For we know that light is material ; and 
being material, it must be dark. For the Spirit of 
God is not material, and therefore, not being material, 
it cannot be light to us, and therefore darkness to 
God. Just as (until discovered otherwise) the world 
it is that is at rest, and the sun and the heavenly 
bodies in daily motion — instead of the very reverse 
being the fact. This is the belief of the oldest Theoso- 
phists, the founders of magical knowledge in the East, 
and the discoverers of the Gods ; also the doctrine 
of the Fire-Philosophers, and of the Rosicrucians, or 
Illuminatiy who taught that all knowable things (both 
of the soul and of the body) were evolved out of Fire, 
and finally resolvable into it : and that Fire was the 
last and only-to-be-known God : as that all things 
w r ere capable of being searched down into it, and all 
things were capable of being thought up into it. Fire, 



STRANGE IDEAS OF FIRE-PHILOSOPHERS 8? 



they found — when, as it were, they took this world, 
solid, to pieces (and also, as metaphysicians, distrib- 
uted and divided the mind of man, seeking for that 
invisible God-thing, coherence of ideas) — fire, these 
thinkers found, in their supernatural light of mind, 
to be the latent, nameless matter started out of the 
tissues — certainly out of the body, presumably out 
of the mind — with groan, disturbance, hard motion, 
and flash (when forced to sight of it), instantly dis- 
appearing, and relapsing, and hiding its Godhead in 
the closing-violently-again solid matter — as into the 
forcefully resuming mind. Matter, the agent whose 
remonstrance at disturbance out of its Rest was, in 
the winds, murmur, noises, cries, as it were, of air ; 
in the waters, rolling and roaring ; in the piled floors 
of the sky, and their furniture, clouds, circumvolvence, 
contest, and war, and thunders (defiant to nature, 
but groans to God), and intolerable lightning-rend- 
ings ; matter tearing as a garment, to close super- 
naturally together again as the Solid, fettered and 
chained — devil-bound — in the Hand upon it, ' To 
Be ! ' In this sense, all noise (as the rousing or con- 
juration of matter by the outside forces) is the agony 
of its penance. All motion is pain, all activity punish- 
ment ; and fire is the secret, lowest — that is, foundat- 
ion-spread — thing, the ultimate of all things, which 
is disclosed when the clouds of things roll, for an 
instant, off it — as the blue sky shows, in its frag- 
ments, like turquoises, when the canopy of clouds is 
wind-torn, speck-like, from off it. Fire is that floor 
over which the coats or layers, or the spun kingdoms 
of matter, or of the subsidences of the past periods 
of time (which is built up of objects), are laid : tissues 
woven over a gulf of it : in one of which last, We Are. 
To which Fire we only become sensible when we start 
it by blows or force, in the rending up of atoms, and 



8S 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



in the blasting out of them that which holds them, 
which then, as Secret Spirit, springs compelled to 
sight, and as instantly flies, except to the immortal 
eyes, which receive it (in the supernatural) on the 
other side. 

The Fire-Philosophers maintained that we trans- 
cend everything into Fire, and that we lose it there 
in the flash ; the escape of fire being as the door 
through which everything disappears to the other 
side. In their very peculiar speculations, and in 
this stupendous and supernatural view of the uni- 
verse, where we think that fire is the exception, and 
is, as it were, spotted over the world (in reality, to go 
out when it goes out), they held that the direct con- 
trary was the truth, and that we, and all things, were 
spotted upon fire : and that we conquer patches only 
of fire when we put it out, or win torches (as it were) 
out of the great flame, when we enkindle fire — which 
is our master in the truth, making itself, in our beliefs 
(in our human needs), the slave. Thus fire, when 
it is put out, only goes into the under world, and the 
matter-flags close over it, like a grave-stone. 

When we witness Fire, we are as if peeping on]" 
through a door into another world. Into this, all 
the (consumed into microscopical smallness) things 
of this world, the compressed and concentrate matter- 
heaps of defunct tides of Being and of Time, are in 
combustion rushing : kingdoms of the floors of the 
things passed through — up to this moment held in 
suspense in the invisible inner worlds. All roars 
through the hollow. All that is mastered in the 
operations of this Fire, and that is rushing through 
the hollow made by it in the partition-world of the 
Knowable — across, and out on the other side, into 
the Unknowable — seeks, in the Fire, its last and 
most perfect evolution into Absolute Nothing — 



HERMETIC FIRE 



89 



as a bound prisoner urges to his feet, in his chains, 
and shrieks for freedom when he is smitten. In Fire, 
we witness a grand phenomenon of the subsidiary 
(or further, and under, and inner, and multiplied) 
birth and death, and the supernatural transit of micro- 
scopic worlds, passing from the human sense-worlds 
to other levels and into newer fields. Then it is that 
the Last Spirit, of which they are composed, is play- 
ing before us ; and playing, into last extinction, out 
of its rings of this-side matter ; all which matter, in 
its various stages of thickening, is as the flux of the 
Supernatural Fire, or inside God. 

It will appear no wonder now, if the above abstract- 
ions be caught by the Thinker, how it was that the 
early people (and the founders of Fire- Worship) 
considered that they saw God, standing face to face 
with Him — that is, with all that, in their innermost 
possibility of thought, they could find as God — in 
Fire. Which Fire is not our vulgar, gross fire ; neither 
is it the purest material fire, which has something 
of the base, bright lights of the world still about it 
— brightest though they be in the matter which makes 
them the Lightest to the material sight ; but it is an 
occult, mysterious, or inner — not even magnetic, 
but a supernatural — Fire : a real, sensible, and the 
only possible Mind, or God, as containing all things, 
and as the soul of all things ; into whose inexpress- 
ibly intense, and all-devouring and divine, though 
fiery, gulf, all the worlds in succession, like ripe fruit 
to the ground, and all things, fall — back into whose 
arms of Immortal Light : on the other side, as again 
receiving them, all things, thrown off as the smoke 
off light, again fall ! 

At the shortest, then, the theory of the Magi may 
be summed up thus. When, as we think, fire is spotted 
over all the world, as we have said, it is we who make 



go 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



the mistake, necessitated in our man's nature ; and 
we are that which is spotted over it — just as, while 
we think we move, we are moved ; and we conclude 
the senses are in us, while we are in the senses ; every- 
thing — out of this world — being the very opposite 
of that which we take it. The views of these mighty 
thinkers amounted to the suppression of human 
reason, and the institution of magic, or god head, as 
all. It will be seen at once that this knowledge was 
possible but for the very - few. It is only fit for men 
when they seek to pass out of the world, and to ap- 
proach — the nearer according to their natures — God. 

The hollow world in which that essence of things, 
called Fire, plays, in its escape, in violent agitation 
— to us, combustion — is deep down inside of us ; that 
is, deep-sunk inside of the time-stages ; of which 
rings of being (subsidences of spirit) we are, in the 
flesh — that is, in the human show of things, in the 
outer. It is exceedingly difficult, through language, 
to make this idea intelligible ; but it is the real mystic 
dogma of the ancient Guebres, or the Fire-Believers, 
the successors of the Buddhists, or, more properly, 
Bhuddists. 

What is explosion ? It is the lancing into the 
layers of worlds, whereinto we force, through turn- 
ing the edges out and driving through ; in surprisal 
of the reluctant, lazy, and secret nature, exposing the 
hidden, magically microscopical stores of things, 
passed inwards out of the accumulated rings of worlds, 
out of the (within) supernaturally buried wealth, 
rolled in, of the past, in the procession of Being. What 
is smoke but the disrupted vapour-world to the started 
soul-fire ? The truth is, say the Fire-Philosophers, 
in the rousing of fire we suddenly come upon Nature, 
and start her violently out of her ambush of things, 
evoking her secret est and immortal face to us. There- 



PYRAMIDAL FIRE 



9 1 



fore is this knowledge not to be known generally of 
man ; and it is to be assumed at the safest in the dis- 
belief of it : that disbelief being as the magic casket 
in which it is locked. The keys are only for the Gods, 
or for god-like spirits. 

This is the true view of the religion of the leaders 
of the ancient Fire-Believers, and of the modern 
Illuminati. 

We shall proceed to demonstrate, in the chapters 
following, other strange things, hitherto wholly unsus- 
pected in the philosophical short-sight of the modern 
metaphysicians . 

We imagine that it will be said that it is impossible 
that any religionists could have seriously entertained 
such extraordinary doctrines ; but, incredible as it 
may seem, because it requires much preparation to 
understand them, it is certainly true, that it is only 
in this manner the ideas of the divinity of fire, which 
we know once prevailed largely, can be made intellig- 
ible — we mean, to the philosopher, who knows how 
properly to value the ancient thinkers, who were 
as giants in the earth. We shall shortly show that 
the monuments raised to this strange faith still remain, 
and that, surviving from the heathen times, the forms 
still linger and lurk largely amidst the Christian Europ- 
ean institutions — the traces of the idolatry, if not 
the idolatry itself. 

Obelisks, spires, minarets, tall towers, upright stones 
(Menhirs), monumental crosses, and architectual 
perpendiculars of every description, and, generally 
speaking, all erections conspicuous for height and 
slimness, were representatives of the sworded, or of 
the pyramidal, Fire. They bespoke, wherever found, 
and in whatever age, the idea of the First Principle, 
or the male generative emblem. 

Having given, as we hope, some new views of the 



9 2 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



doctrine of Universal Fire, and shown that there has 
been error in imagining that the Persians and the 
ancient Fire-Worshippers were idolaters simply of 
fire, inasmuch as, in bowing down before it, they only 
regarded Fire as a symbol, or visible sign, or thing 
placed as standing for the Deity — having, in our pre- 
ceding chapters, disposed the mind of the reader to 
consider as a matter of solemnity, and of much greater 
general significance, this strange fact of Fire- Worship, 
and endeavoured to show it as a portentous, first, 
all-embracing as all-genuine principle — we will pro- 
ceed to exemplify the widespread roots of the Fire- 
Faith. In fact, we seem to recognize it everywhere. 

Instead of — in their superstitions — making of fire 
their God, they obtained Him, that is, all that we 
can realize of Him • by which we mean, all that the 
human reason can find of the Last Principle — out of 
it. Already, in their thoughts, had the Magi exhausted 
all possible theologies ; already had they, in their 
great wisdom, searched through physics — their power 
to this end (as not being distracted by world's objects) 
being much greater than that of the modern faith- 
teachers and doctors ; already in their reveries, in 
their observations (deep within their deep souls) 
upon the nature of themselves, and of the microcosm 
of a world in which they found themselves, had the 
Magi transcended. They had arrived at a new 
world in their speculations and deductions upon facts, 
upon all the things behind which (to men) make these 
facts. Already, in their determined climbing into 
the heights of thought, had these Titans of mind 
achieved, past the cosmic al, through the shadowy 
borders of Real and Unreal, into Magic. For, is 
Magic wholly false ? 

Passing through these mind-worlds, and coming 
out, as we may figure it, at the other side, penetrating 



PARACELSUS 



93 



into the secrets of things, they evaporated all Powers, 
and resolved them finally into the Last Fire. Beyond 
this, they found nothing ; as into this they resolved 
all things. And then, on the Throne of the Visible, 
they placed this — in the world, Invisible — Fire : the 
sense-thing to be worshipped in the senses, as the last 
thing of them, and the king of them — that is, that 
which we know as the phenomenon, Burning Fire — 
the Spiritual Fire being impalpable, as having the 
visible only for its shadow ; the Ghostly Fire not 
being even to be thought upon ; thought being its 
medium of apprehension when it itself had slipped ; 
the waves of apprehension of it only flowing back 
when it — being intuition — had vanished. We only 
know that a thought is in us when the thought is off 
the object and in us : another thought being, at that 
simultaneous instant, in the object, to be taken up 
by us only when the first has gone out of us, and so 
on ; but not before to be taken up by us — that thought 
being all of us, and a deceptive and unreal thing to 
pass at all to us through the reason, and there being 
no resemblance between it and its original : the true 
thing being 1 Inspiration or ' God in us excluding 
all matter or reason, which is only built up of matter. 
It is most difficult to frame language in regard to 
these things. Reason can only unmake God ; He 
is only possible in His own development, or in His 
seizing of us, and ' in possession Thus Paracelsus 
and his disciples declare that Human Reason become 
our master, that is, in its perfection — but not used 
as our servant — transforms, as it were, into the Devil, 
and exercises his office in leading us away from the 
throne of Spiritual Light — other, and, in the world, 
seeming better ; in his false and deluding World-Light, 
or Matter-Light, really showing himself God. This 
view of the Human Reason, intellectually trusted, 



94 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



transforming into the Angel of Darkness, and effacing 
God out of the world, is borne out by a thousand texts 
of Scripture. It is equally in the belief and in the 
traditions of all nations and of all time, as we shall 
by and by show. Real Light is God's shadow, or 
the soul of matter ; the one is the very brighter, as 
the other is the very blacker. Thus, the worshippers 
of the Sun, or Light, or Fire, whether in the Old or 
the New Worlds, worshipped not Sun, or Light, or 
Fire — otherwise they would have worshipped the 
Devil, he being all conceivable Light ; but rather 
they adored the Unknown Great God, in the last 
image that was possible to man of anything — the 
Fire. And they chose that as His shadow, as the 
very opposite of that which He really was ; honour- 
ing the Master through His Servant ; bowing before 
the manifestation, Eldest of Time, for the Timeless • 
paying homage to the spirit of the Devil- World, or 
rather to the Beginning and End, on which was the 
foot of the All, that the All, or the Last, might be 
worshipped ; propitiating the Evil Principle in its 
finite shows, because (as by that alone a world could 
be made, whose making is alone Comparison) it was 
permitted as a means of God, and therefore the opera- 
tion of God Downwards, as part of Him, though 
Upwards dissipating as before Him — before Him in 
whose presence Evil, or Comparison, or Difference, 
or Time, or Space, or anything, should be Impossible : 
real God being not to be thought upon. 

But it was not only in the quickening Spirit of 
Divinity that these things could be seen. Other- 
wise than in faith, we can hope that they shall now 
— in our weak attempts to explain them — be gathered 
as not contradictory, and merely intellectual, and 
seen as vital and absolute. They need the elevation 
of the mind in the sense of 1 inspiration and not the 



THE FIRE-RELIGION UNIVERSAL 95 



quickening and the sharpening of the Intellect, as 
seeking wings — devil-pinions — wherewith to sail into 
the region only of its own laws, where, of course it 
will not find God. Then step in the mathematics, 
then the senses, then the reason — then the very 
perfection of matter-work, or this world's work, sets 
in — engines of which the Satanic Powers shall realize 
the work. The Evil Spirit conjures, as even by holy 
command, the translucent sky. The Archangelic, 
clear, child-like rendering-up in intuitive belief- 
intense in its own sun — is Faith. Lucifer fills the 
scope of belief with imitative, dazzling clouds, and 
built splendours. With these temptations it is sought 
to dissuade, sought to rival, sought to put out Saints' 
sight — sought even to surpass in seeming a further 
and truer, because a more solid and a more sensible, 
glory. The apostate, real-born Lucifer is so named 
as the intensest Spirit of Light, because he is of the 
things that perish, and of the things that to Mind — 
because they are all of Matter — have the most of 
glory ! Thus is one of the names of the Devil, the 
very eldest-born and brightest Star of Light, that of 
the very morning and beginning of all things — the 
clearest, brightest, purest, as being soul-like, of Nature ; 
but only of Nature. Real law, or Nature, is the 
Devil ; real Reason is the Devil. 

Now we shall find, with a little patience, that this 
transcendental, beyond - limit - or - knowledge ancient 
belief of the Fire-God is to be laid hand upon — as, 
in a manner, we shall say — in all the stories and theolo- 
gies of the ancient world — in all the countries (and 
they, indeed, are all) where belief has grown — yea, 
as a thing with the trees and plants, as out of the very 
ground, in all the continents, and in both worlds. 
And out of this great fact of its universal diffusion, 
as a matter of history the most innate and coexistent, 



96 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

shall we not assume this fire-doctrine as being of truth 
— as a thing really, fundamentally, and vitally true ? 
As in the East, so in the West ; as in the old time, 
so in the new ; as in the preadamite and postdiluvian 
worlds, so in the modern and latter-day world ; sur- 
viving through the ages, buried in the foundations 
of empires, locked in the rocks, hoarded in legends, 
maintained in monuments, preserved in beliefs, sug- 
gested in tradition, borne amidst the roads of the 
multitude in emblems, gathered up — as the recurring, 
unremarked, supernaturally coruscant, and yet secret, 
evading, encrusted, and dishonoured jewel — in rites, 
spoken (to those capable of the comprehension) in 
the field of hieroglyphics, dimly glowing up to a fitful 
suspicion of it in the sacred rites of all peoples, figured 
forth in the religions, symbolized in a hundred ways ; 
attested, prenoted, bodied forth in occult body, as 
far as body can — in fine, in multitudinous fashions 
and forms forcibly soliciting the sharpness of sight 
directed to its discovery, and spelt over a floor as under- 
placing all things, we recognize, we espy, we descry, 
and we may, lastly, admit the mysterious sacredness 
of Fire. For why should we not admit it ? 

Of course, it will not for a moment be supposed 
that we mean anything like — or in its nature similar 
to — ordinary fire. We hope that no one will be so 
absurd as to suppose that this in any manner could 
be the mysterious and sacred element for which we 
are contesting. Where we are seeking to transcend, 
this would be simply sinking back into vulgar reason. 
While we are seeking to convict and dethrone this 
world's reason as the real devil, this would be dis- 
tinctly deifying common sense. Of common sense, 
except for common-sense objects, we make no account. 
We have rather in awed contemplation the divine, 
ineffable, transcendental Spirit — the Immortal fer- 



HUMAN REASON 



97 



vour — into which the whole World evolves. We 
have the mystery of the Holy Spirit in view, called 
by its many names. 

It is because theologies will contest concerning 
divers names of the same thing, that we therefore 
seek, in transcending, but to identify. It is because 
men will dispute about forms, that we seek philoso- 
phically to show that all forms are impossible — that, 
when we take the human reason into account, all 
forms of belief are alike. Reason has been the great 
enemy of religion. Let us see if this world's reason 
cannot be mastered. 

We are now about — in a new light — to treat of facts, 
and of various historical monuments. They all bear 
reference to this universal story of the mystic Fire. 

We claim to be the first to point out how strikingly 
— and yet how, at the same time, without any sus- 
picion of it — these emblems and remains, in so many 
curious and unintelligible forms, of the magic religion 
are found in the Christian churches. 




H 



I 



CHAPTER THE TWELFTH 

MONUMENTS RAISED TO FIRE-WORSHIP IN ALL 
COUNTRIES 

We think that we shall be able fully in our succeeding 
chapters to place beyond contradiction an extra- 
ordinary discovery. It is, that the whole round of 
disputed emblems which so puzzle antiquaries, and 
which are found in all countries, point to the belief 
in Fire as the First Principle. We seek to show that 
the Fire- Worship was the very earliest, from the 
immemorial times — that it was the foundation re- 
ligion — that the attestation to it is preserved in 
monuments scattered all over the globe — that the 
rites and usages of all creeds, down even to our own 
day, and in everyday use about us, bear reference 
to it — that problems and puzzles in religion, which 
cannot be otherwise explained, stand clear and evident 
when regarded in this new light — that in all the Chris- 
tian varieties of belief — as truly as in Bhuddism, in 
Mohammedanism, in Heathenism of all kinds, whether 
Eastern, or Western, or Northern, or Southern — this 
' Mystery of Fire ' stands ever general, recurring, and 
conspicuous — and that in being so, beyond all measure, 
old, and so, beyond all modern or any idea of it, 
general — as universal, in fact, as man himself, and 
the thoughts of man ; and, as being that beyond 
which, in science and in natural philosophy, we can- 
not further go, it must carry truth with it, however 
difficult to comprehend, and however unsuspected : 

88 



FIRE-MONUMENTS 



99 



that is, as really being the manifestation and Spirit 
of God, and — to the confounding and annihilation of 
Atheism — Revelation . 

Affirmatively we shall now, therefore, offer to the 
attention of the reader the universal scattering of the 
Fire-Monuments, taking up at the outset certain 
positions about them. 

Narrowly considered, it will be found that all re- 
ligions transcend up into this spiritual Fire-Floor, on 
which, to speak metaphysically, the phases of Time 
were laid. Material Fire, which is the brighter as the 
matter which constitutes it is the blacker, is the shadow 
(so to express, or to speak, necessarily with ' words 
which have no meaning in the spirit) of the ' Spirit- 
Light which invests itself in it as the mask in which 
alone it can be possible. Thus, material light being 
the very opposite of God, the Egyptians — who were 
undoubtedly acquainted with the Fire-Revelation — 
could not represent God as light. They therefore 
expressed their Idea of Deity by darkness. Their 
chief adoration was paid to Darkness. They bodied 
the Eternal forth under Darkness. 

In the early times before the Deluge — of which 
' phenomenon as there remains a brighter or fainter 
tradition of it among all the peoples of the globe, it 
must be true — Man walked with the Knowledge of 
Spirit in him. He has derogated, through time, from 
this primeval, God-informed Type. Knowledge of 
Good and Evil, or the power of perceiving difference, 
became his faculty, with his power of propagation, 
only in his fallen state — that is, his gods only came 
to him in his fallen state. As one of two things must 
of necessity be under the other, and as ' one ' and 
' two ' are double in succession — one being, as a 
matter of course, before the other — and ' positive ' or 
' particled existence being in itself denial of ' ab- 



100 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



stract or ' imparticlej. existence — existence need- 
ing something other than itself to find itself — logicians 
must see at once in this that Comparison is consti- 
tuted ; from out of which difference is built Light and 
Shadow, or a world, whether the moral world or the 
real world. 

The immemorial landmark, in the architectural 
form, is the upright. We find the earliest record of 
this in the setting-up of monumental stones. Seth 
is said to have engraved the wisdom of the Ante- 
diluvians upon two pillars — one of brick, the other 
of stone — which he erected in the \ Siriadic land ' — 
a Terra Incognita to modern antiquaries. This rais- 
ing of the ' reminding-stone ' prevails in all places, 
and was the act of all time. It is the only indepen- 
dent thing which stands distinct out of the clouds 
of the past. It would seem universally to refer to 
the single Supernatural Tradition — all that is heired 
out of Time. A mysterious Cabalistic volume of 
high repute, and of the greatest antiquity, is The 
Book of Light, whose doctrine divides. The first 
dogma is that of ' Light-Enlightened or ' Self- 
Existent which signifies God, or the Light Spiritual, 
which is darkness in the world, or Manifestation or 
Creation. This Light-Enlightened is Inspiration, or 
blackness to men (God), opposed to knowledge, or 
brightness to men (the Devil). The second Light is 
the Enlightening Light, or the Material Light, which 
is the producer, foundation, and God of this World 
— proceeding, nevertheless, from God ; for He is All. 
It is in reverence to this second light, and to the 
Mysterious Identity of both (the third power Three 
in One) — but only in the necessity of ' being * — all 
dark-being constituting all bright-being in the Spirit, 
and Both, and their identity, being One — that these 
monumental pillars are raised — being really the mark 



SUN-GODS 



101 



and the signal (warning on, in Time) of supernatural, 
cr magic, knowledge. 

Stones were set up by the Patriarchs : the Bible 
records them. In India, the first objects of worship 
were monoliths. In the two peninsulas of India, in 
Ceylon, in Persia, in the Holy Land, in Phoenicia, in 
Sarmathia, in Scythia, everywhere where worship was 
attempted (and in what place where man exists is it 
not ?), everywhere where worship was practised (and 
where, out of fears, did not, first, come the gods, and 
then their propitiation ?) — in all the countries, we 
repeat, as the earliest of man's work, we recognize 
this sublime, mysteriously speaking, ever-recurring 
monolith, marking up the tradition of the super- 
naturally real, and only real, Fire-dogma. Buried so 
far down in time, the suspicion assents that there 
must somehow be truth in the foundation ; not fanci- 
ful, legendary, philosophical creed-truth, unexplain- 
able (and only to be admitted without question) 
truth ; but truth, however mysterious and awing, 
yet cogent, and not to be of philosophy (that is, illu- 
mination) denied. 

The death and descent of Balder into the Hell of 
the Scandinavians may be supposed to be the purga- 
tory of the Human Unit (or the God-illuminate), from 
the Light (through the God-dark phases of being), 
back into its native Light. Balder was the Scandi- 
navian Sun-God, and the same as the Egyptian Osiris, 
the Greek Hercules, Bacchus, and Phoebus, or Apollo, 
the Indian Crishna, the Persian Mithras, the Aten of 
the empires of insular Asia ; or, even of the Sidonians, 
the Athyr or Ashtaroth. The presences of all these 
divinities — indeed, of all Gods — were of the semblance 
of Fire ; and we recognize, as it were, the mark of 
the foot of them, or of the Impersonated Fire, in the 
countless uprights, left, as memorials, in the great 



102 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



ebb of the ages (as waves) to nations in the latter 
divisions of that great roll of periods called Time ; 
yet so totally unguessing of the preternatural mystery 
— seeming the key of all belief, and the reading of all 
wonders — which they speak. 

It is to be noted that all the above religions — all 
the Creeds of Fire — were exceedingly similar in their 
nature ; that they were all fortified by rites, and 
fenced around with ceremonies ; and that, associated 
as they were with mysteries and initiations, the dis- 
ciple was led through the knowledge of them in stages, 
as his powers augmented and his eyes saw, until, to- 
wards the last grades (as he himself grew capable and 
illuminate), the door was closed upon all after-pres- 
sing and unrecognized inquirers, and the Admitted 
One was himself lost sight of. 

There was a great wave to the westward of all 
knowledge, all cultivation of the arts, all tradition, all 
intellect, all civilization, all religious belief. The 
world was peopled westwards. There seems some 
secret, divine impress upon the world's destinies — 
and, indeed, ingrain in cosmical matter — in these 
matters. All faiths seem to have diverged out, the 
narrower or the wider, as rays from the great central 
sun of this tradition of the Fire-Original. It would 
seem that Noah, who is suspected to be the Fo, Foh, 
or Fohi, of the Chinese, carried it into the farthest 
Cathay of the Middle Ages. What is the Chinese 
Tien, or Earliest Fire ? The pagodas of the Chinese 
(which name, pagoda, was borrowed from the Indian ; 
from which country of India, indeed, probably came 
into China its worship, and its Bhuddist doctrine of 
the exhaustion back into the divine light, or unpar- 
ticled nothingness, of all the stages of Being or of 
Evil) — the Chinese pagodas, we repeat, are nothing 
but innumerable gilt and belled fanciful repetitions 



CHINESE PAGODAS 



103 



of the primeval monolith. The fire, or light, is still 
worshipped in the Chinese temples ; it has not been 
perceived that, in the very form of the Chinese pago- 
das, the fundamental article of the Chinese religion 
— transmigration, through stages of being, out into 
nothingness of this world — has been architecturally 
emblemed in the diminishing stories, carried upwards, 
and fining away into the series of unaccountable discs 
struck through a vertical rod, until all culminates, and 
— as it were, to speak heraldically of it — the last 
achievement is blazoned in the gilded ball, which means 
the final, or Bhuddist, glorifying absorption. Build- 
ings have always telegraphed the insignia of the 
mythologies ; and, in China, the fantastic speaks the 
sublime. We recognize the same embodied Mythos 
in all architectural spiring or artistic diminution, 
whether tapering to the globe or exaltation of the 
Egyptian Urczus, or the disc, or the Sidonian crescent, 
or the lunar horns, or the acroterium of the Greek 
temple, or the pediment of the classic ftronaos itself 
(crowning, how grandly and suggestively, at solemn 
dawn, or in the ' spirit-lustres ' of the dimming, and, 
still more than dawn, solemn twilight, the top of some 
mountain, an ancient of the days). Here, besetting 
us at every turn, meet we the same mythic emblem : 
again, in the crescent of the Mohammedan fanes, sur- 
mounting even the Latin, and therefore the once 
Christian, St. Sophia. Last, and not least, the count- 
less ' churches ' rise, in the Latter-day Dispensation, 
sublimely to the universal signal, in the glorifying, 
or top, or crowning Cross : last of the Revelations ! 

In the fire-towers of the Sikhs, in the dome-covered 
and many-storied spires of the Hindoos, in the verti- 
cally turreted and longitudinally massed temples of 
the Bhudds, of all the classes and of all the sects, in 
the religious buildings of the Cingalese, in the upright 



104 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



flame-fanes of the Parsees, in the original of the cam- 
paniles of the Italians, in the tower of St. Mark at 
Venice, in the flame-shaped or pyramidal (J>yr is the 
Greek for fire) architecture of the Egyptians (which 
is the parent of all that is called architecture), we see 
the recurring symbol. All the minarets that, in the 
Eastern sunshine, glisten through the Land of the 
Moslem ; indeed, his two-horned crescent, equally 
with the moon, or disc, of two-pointed globe of the 
Sidonian Ashtaroth (after whose forbidden worship 
Solomon, the wisest of mankind, in his defection from 
the God of his fathers, evilly thirsted) ; also, the mys- 
tic discus, or * round ' of the Egyptians, so continually 
repeated, and set, as it were, as the forehead-mark 
upon all the temples of the land of soothsayers and 
sorcerers — this Egypt so profound in its philosophies, 
in its wisdom, in its magic-seeing, and in its religion, 
raising out of the black Abyss a God to shadow it 
— all the minarets of the Mohammedan, we say, to- 
gether with all the other symbols of moon, of disc, of 
wings, or of horns (equally with the shadowy and pre- 
ternatural beings in all mythologies and in all theo- 
logies, to which these adjuncts or insignia are referred, 
and which are symbolized by them) — all these monu- 
ments, or bodied meanings, testify to the Deification 
of Fire. 

What may mean that ' Tower of Babel 1 and its 
impious raising, when it sought, even past and over 
the clouds, to imply a daring sign ? What portent 
was that betrayal of a knowledge not for man — that 
surmise forbidden save in infinite humility, and in the 
whispered impartment of the further and seemingly 
more impossible, and still more greatly mystical, 
meanings ? In utter abnegation of self alone shall 
the mystery of fire be conceived. Of what was this 
Tower of Belus, or the Fire, to be the monument ? 



THE TOWER, ' TOR', OR ' TAU ' OF BABEL 105 

When it soared, as a pharos, on the rock of the tra- 
ditionary ages, to defy time in its commitment to 
' form ' of the unpronounceable secret — stage on 
stage and story on story, though it climbed the clouds, 
and on its top should shine the ever-burning fire — - 
first idol of the world, ' dark, save with neglected 
stars ' — what was the Tower of Babel but a gigantic 
monolith ? Perhaps to record and to perpetuate this 
ground-fire of all ; to be worshipped, an idol, in its 
visible form, when it should be alone taken as the 
invisible thought: fire to be waited for (spirit-possess- 
ion), not waited on (idolatry). Therefore was the 
speech confounded, that the thing should not be ; 
therefore, under the myth of climbing into heaven 
by the means of it, was the first colossal monolithic 
temple (in which the early dwellers upon the earth 
sought to enshrine the Fire) laid prostrate in the thun- 
der of the Great God ! And the languages were con- 
founded from that day — speech was made babble 
— thence its name — that the secret should remain a 
secret. It was to be only darkly hinted, and to be 
fitfully disclosed, like a false-showing light, in the 
theosophic glimmer, amidst the world's knowledge- 
lights. It was to reappear, like a spirit, to the ' ini- 
tiate in the glimpse of reverie, in the snatches of 
sight, in the prof oundest wisdom, through the studies 
of the ages. 

We find, in the religious administration of the anc- 
ient world, the most abundant proofs of the secret 
fire-tradition. Schweigger shows, in his Introduction 
into Mythology (pp. 132, 228), that the Phoenician 
Cabiri and the Greek Dioscuri, the Curetes, Cory- 
bantes, Telchini, were originally of the same nature, 
and are only different in trifling particulars. All 
these symbols represent electric and magnetic pheno- 
mena, and that under the ancient name of twin-fires, 



io6 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



hermaphrodite fire. The Dioscuri is a phrase equiva- 
lent to the Sons of Heaven : if, as Herodotus asserts, 
* Zeus originally represented the whole circle of 
heaven \ 

According to the ancient opinion of Heraclitus, tne 
contest of opposing forces is the origin of new bodies, 
and the reconcilement of these contending principles 
is called combustion. This is, according to Mont- 
faucon, sketched in the minutest detail in the engrav- 
ings of the ancient Phoenician Cabiri. 

From India into Egypt was imported this spiritual 
fire-belief. We recognize, again, its never-failing 
structure-signal. Rightly regarded, the great Pyra- 
mids are nothing but the world-enduring architectural 
attestation, following (in the pyramidal) the well- 
known leading law of Egypt's templar-piling — mound- 
like, spiry — of the universal Flame-Faith. Place a 
light upon the summit, star-like upon the sky, and a 
prodigious altar the mighty Pyramid then becomes. 
In this tribute to the world-filling faith, burneth ex- 
pressed devotion to (radiateth acknowledgment of) 
the immemorial magic religion. There is little doubt 
that as token and emblem of fire-worship, as indic- 
ative of the adoration of the real, accepted deity, 
these Pyramids were raised. The idea that they were 
burial-places of the Egyptian monarchs is. untenable, 
when submitted to the weighing of meanings, and 
when it comes side by side with this better fire-ex- 
planation. Cannot we accept these Pyramids as the 
vast altars on whose top should burn the flame — 
flame commemorative, as it were, to all the world ? 
Cannot we see in these piles, literally and really trans- 
cendental in origin, the Egyptian reproduction, and a 
hieroglyphical signalling-on, of special truth, eldest of 
time ? Do we not recognize in the Pyramid the 
repetition of the first monolith — all the uprights con- 



MYSTERY OF THE 'HORNS* 



107 



stituting the grand attesting pillar to the supernatural 
tradition of a Fire-Born World ? 

The ever-recurring globe with wings, so frequent 
in the sculptures of the Egyptians, witnesses to the 
Electric Principle. It embodies the transmigration of 
the Indians, reproduced by Pythagoras. Pythagoras 
resided for a long period in Egypt, and acquired from 
the priests the philosophic ' transition '-knowledge, 
which was afterwards doctrine. The globe, disc, or 
circle of the Phoenician Astarte, the crescent of Minerva, 
the horns of the Egyptian Amnion, the deifying of 
the ox — all have the same meaning. We trace among 
the Hebrews, the token of the identical mystery in 
the horns of Moses, distinct in the sublime statue by 
Michael Angelo in the Vatican ; as also in the horns 
of the Levitical altar : indeed, the use of the ' double 
hieroglyph ' in continual ways. The volutes of the 
Ionic column, the twin-stars of Castor and Pollux, 
nay, generally, the employment of the double emblem 
all the world over, in ancient or in modern times, 
whether displayed as points, or radii, or wings on the 
helmets of those barbarian chiefs who made war upon 
Rome, Attila or Genseric, or broadly shown upon 
the head-piece of the Frankish Clovis ; whether em- 
blemed in the rude and, as it were, savagely mystic 
horns of the Asiatic idols, or reproduced in the horns 
of the Runic Hammerer (or Destroyer), or those of 
the Gothic Mars, or of the modern devil ; all this 
double-spreading from a common point (or this figure 
of Horns) speaks the same story. 4 

The Colossus of Rhodes was a monolith, in the 
human form, dedicated to the Sun, or to fire. The 
Pharos of Alexandria was a fire-monument. Heliop- 
olis, or the City of the Sun, in Lower Egypt (as the 
name signifies), contained a temple, wherein, combined 
with all the dark superstitions of the Egyptians, the 



io8 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



flame-secret was preserved. In most jealous secrecy 
was the tradition guarded, and the symbol alone was 
presented to the world. Of the Pyramids, as pro- 
digious Fire-Monuments, we have before spoken. 
Magnificent as the principal Pyramid still is, it is 
stated by an ancient historian that it originally formed, 
at the base, ' a square of eight hundred feet, and that 
it was eight hundred feet high \ Another informs us 
that ' three hundred and sixty-six thousand men were 
employed twenty years in its erection \ Its height 
is now supposed to be six hundred feet. Have his- 
torians and antiquaries carefully weighed the fact 
(even in the name of the Pyramids), that Pyr, or Pur, 
in the Greek, means Fire ? We would argue that 
that object, in the Great Pyramid, which has been 
mistaken for a tomb (and which is, moreover, rather 
fashioned like an altar, smooth and plain, without any 
carved work), is, in reality, the vase, urn, or depository, 
of the sacred, ever-burning fire : of the existence of 
which ever-living, inextinguishable fire, to be found 
at some period of the world's history, there is abun- 
dant tradition. This view is fortified by the statements 
of Diodorus, who writes that ' Cheops, or Chemis, 
who founded the principal Pyramid, and Cephren, or 
Cephrenus, who built the next to it, were neither 
buried here, but that they were deposited elsewhere'. 

Cheops, Cephrenus, and Mycerinus, the mighty 
builders of these super-gigantic monuments, of which 
it is said that they look as if intended to resist the 
waste of the ages, and, as in a front of supernatural 
and sublime submission, to await, in the undulation 
of Time (as in the waves of centuries), the expected 
revolution of nature, and the new and recommencing 
series of existence, surely had in view something 
grander, something still more universally portentous, 
than sepulture — or even death 1 



THE PYRAMIDS 



log 



Is it at all reasonable to conclude, at a period when 
knowledge was at the highest, and when the human 
powers were, in comparison with ours at the present 
time, prodigious, that all these indomitable, scarcely 
believable, physical efforts — that such achievements 
as those of the Egyptians — were devoted to a mistake ? 
that the Myriads of the Nile were fools labouring 
in the dark, and that all the magic of their great men 
was forgery ? and that we, in despising that which 
we caU their superstition and wasted power, are 
alone the wise ? Xo ! there is much more in these 
old religions than, probably, in the audacity of modern 
denial, in the confidence of these superficial-science 
times, and in the derision of these days without faith, 
is in the least degree supposed. We do not under- 
stand the old time. 

It is evident from their hieroglyphics that the 
Egyptians were acquainted with the wonders of magnet- 
ism. By means of it (and by the secret powers 
which lie in the hyper-sensual, ' heaped floors ' of it), 
out of the every-day senses, the Egyptians struck 
together, as it were, a bridge, across which they 
paraded into the supernatural ; the magic portals 
receiving them as on the other and armed side of a 
drawbridge, shaking in its thunders in its raising (or 
in its lowering), as out of flesh. Athwart this, in 
trances, swept the adepts, leaving their mortality 
behind them : all, and their earth-surroundings, to 
be resumed at their reissue upon the plains of life, 
when down in their humanity again. 

In the cities of the ancient world, the Palladium, or 
Protesting Talisman (invariably set up in the chief 
square or place), was — there is but little doubt — the 
reiteration of the very earliest monolith. All the 
obelisks — each often a single stone, of prodigious 
weight — all the singular, solitary, wonderful pillars 



110 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



and monuments of Egypt, as of other lands, are, as 
it were, only tombstones of the Fire ! All testify to 
the great, so darkly hinted secret. In Troy was the 
image of Pallas, the myth of knowledge, of the world, 
of manifestation, of the fire-soul. In Athens was 
Pallas- Athene, or Minerva. In the Greek cities, the 
form of the deity changed variously to Bacchus, to 
Hercules, to Phoebus- Apollo ; to the tri-formed Minerva, 
Dian, and Hecate ; to the dusky Ceres, or the darker 
Cybele. In the wilds of Sarmathia, in the wastes 
of Northern Asia, the luminous rays descended from 
heaven, and, animating the Lama, or * Light-Born 
spoke the same story. The flames of the Greeks, 
the towers of the Phoenicians, the emblems of the 
Pelasgi ; the story of Prometheus, and the myth of 
his stealing the fire from heaven, wherewith to animate 
the man (or ensoul the visible world) ; the forges of 
the Cyclops, and the monuments of Sicily ; the 
mysteries of the Etrurians ; the rites of the Carthag- 
inians ; the torches borne, in all priestly demon- 
strative processions, at all times, in all countries ; 
the vestal fires of the Romans ; the very word flamen, 
as indicative of the office of the officiating sacerdote ; 
the hidden fires of the ancient Persians, and of the 
grimmer (at least in name) Guebres ; the whole mystic 
meaning of flames on altars, of the ever-burning 
tombs-lights of the earlier peoples, whether in the 
classic or in the barbarian lands — everything of this 
kind was intended to signify the deified Fire. Fires 
are lighted in the funeral ceremonies of the Hindoos 
and of the Mohammedans, even to this day, though 
the body be committed whole to earth. Wherefore 
fire, then ? Cremation and urn-burial, or the burn- 
ing of the dead — practised in all ages — imply a pro- 
founder meaning than is generally supposed. They 
point to the transmigration of Pythagoras, or to the 



SINGULAR IDEAS REGARDING FIRE ill 



purgatorial reproductions of the Indians, among 
whom we the earliest find the dogma. The real 
signification of fire-burial is the commitment of human 
mortality into the last of all matter, overleaping the 
intermediate states ; or the delivering over of the 
man-unit into the Flame-Soul, past all intervening 
spheres or stages of the purgatorial : the absolute 
doctrine of the Bhudds, taught, even at this day, among 
the initiate all over the East. Thus we see how 
classic practice and heathen teaching may be made 
to reconcile — how even the Gentile and Hebrew, 
the mythological and the (so-called) Christian, doc- 
trine harmonize in the general faith — founded in 
magic. That magic is indeed possible is the moral 
of our book. 

We have seen that Hercules was the myth of the 
Electric Principle. His pillars (Calpe and Abyla) 
are the Dual upon which may be supposed to rest a 
world. They stood in the days when giants might 
really be imagined — indeed, they almost look as 
impressive of it now — the twin prodigious monoliths, 
similar in purpose to the artificial pyramids. They 
must have struck the astonished and awed discoverer's 
gaze, navigating that silent Mediterranean (when men 
seemed as almost to find themselves alone in the 
world), as the veritable, colossal, natural pillars on 
which should burn the double Lights of the forbidden 
Baal : witness of the ever-perpetuated, ever-perpet- 
uating legend of the fire-making ! So to the Phoenic- 
ian sailors, who, we are told, first descried, and then 
stemmed royally through, these peaked and jagged 
and majestic Straits — doorway to the mighty floor 
of the new blue ocean, still of the more Tyrian crystal 
depth — rolling, in walls of waves, under the enticing 
blaze of the cloud-empurpled, all-imperial, western 
sun, whose court was fire indeed — God's, not Baal's ! 



112 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



— so to these men of Sidon, emblemed with the fire- 
white horns of the globed Astarte, or Ashtaroth, 
showed the monster rocks : pillar-portals — fire-topped 
as the last world-beacon — to close in (as gate) that 
classic sea, and to warn, as of the terrors of the un- 
known, new, and second world of farthest waters, 
which stretched to the limits of possibility. For- 
saking, indeed, daringly,- were these Iberi their altars, 
to tempt perils, when they left behind them that 
mouth of their Mediterranean : that sea upon whose 
emba}^ed and devious margin were nations the most 
diverse, yet the mightiest of the earth. The very 
name of the Iberia which they discovered, and to 
which they themselves gave title, hints the Cabiri, 
who carried, doubtless, in their explorations, as equally 
with their commerce and their arts, their religious 
usages and their faith, as pyramidically intensifying, 
until it flashed truth upon the worlds in the grand 
Fire-Dogma — that faith to which sprung monuments 
from all the sea-borders at which glittered the beak 
— itself an imitation flame — of every many-oared, 
single ship of their adventurous, ocean-dotting fleets 
— the precursors of the exploring ships of the Vikings. 

We claim the cauldron of the witches as, in the 
original, the vase or urn of the fiery transmigration, 
in which all the things of the world change. We 
accept the sign of the double-extended fingers (pointed 
in a fork) or of horns, which throughout Italy, the 
Greek Islands, Greece, and Turkey, is esteemed as the 
counter-charm to the Evil Eye, as the occult Magian 
telegraphic. The horns, or radii of the Merry-Andrew, 
or Jester, or Motley, and the horns of Satan, indeed, 
the figure of horns generally x s even have a strange 

1 Horns generally — whether the horns of the cocu, which need 
not be those of the ' wittol ', or contented, betrayed husband, 
but generally implying the mysterious ultra-natural scorn, ranging 



MAGIC SYMBOLS 



"2> 



affinity in the consecrate and religious. The horse- 
shoe, so universally employed as a defensive charm, 
and used as a sign to warn-off and to consecrate, 
when — as it so frequently is — displayed at the entrance 
of stables, outhouses, and farm-buildings in country 
places, speaks the acknowledgment of the Devil, or 
Sinister Principle. The rearing aloft, and ' throwing 
out ' as it were, of protesting, and — in a certain fashion 
— badge-like, magic signs, in the bodies of bats, and 
wild nocturnal creatures, fixed upon barn doors, we 
hold to be the perpetuation of the old heathen sacrifice 
to the harmful gods, or a sort of devil-propitiation. 
Again, in this horse-shoe we meet the horse 3 as indi- 
cative of, and connected with, spirit power : of which 
strange association we shall by and by have more to 
say. The horse-shoe is the mystic symbol of the 
Wizard's Foot, or the sigma, or sign, of the abstract 
1 Four-footed the strangely secret, constantly pre- 
sented, but as constantly evading, magic meaning 
conveyed in which (a tremendous cabalistic sign) we 
encounter everywhere. May the original, in the East, 
of the horse-shoe arch of the Saracens, which is a 
foundation-form of our Gothic architecture — may 
the horse-shoe form of all arches and cupolas (which 
figure is to be met everywhere in Asia) — may these 
strange, rhomboidal curves carry reference to the 
ancient mysterious blending of the ideas of the horse 
and the supernatural and religious ? It is an awing 
thought ; but Spirits and supernatural embodiments 
— unperceived by our limited, vulgar senses — may 
make their daily walk amidst us, invisible, in the 
ways of the world. It may indeed be that they are 
sometimes suddenly happened upon, and, as it were, 

in meaning with the ' attiring ' and stigmatizing of Actaeon turned 
into the stag, and hunted by his own hounds, for surprising Diana 
naked. 

I 



H4 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



surprised. The world — although so silent — may be 
noisy with ghostly feet. The Unseen Ministers may 
every day pass in and out among our ways, and we 
all the time think that we have the world to ourselves. 
It is, as it were, to this inside, unsuspected world 
that these recognitive, deprecatory signs of horse- 
shoes and of charms are addressed ; that the harming 
presences, unprovoked, may pass harmless ; that the 
jealous watch of the Unseen over us may be assuaged 
in the acknowledgment ; that the unrecognized pre- 
sences amidst us, if met with an unconsciousness for 
which man cannot be accountable, may not be offended 
with carelessness in regard of them for which he may 
be punishable. 



C 



CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH 

DRUIDICAL STONES AND THEIR WORSHIP 

The monolith, talisman, mysterious pillar, or stone 
memorial, raised in attestation of the fire-tradition, 
and occupying the principal square or place, Forum, 
or middle-most or navel-point of the city in ancient 
times, is the original of our British market-crosses. 
The cromlech, or bilithon, or trilithon ; the single, 
double, or grouped stones found in remote places — in 
Cornwall, in Wales, in various counties of England, 
in by-spots in Scotland, in the Scottish Isles, in the 
Isle of Man, and in Ireland — all these stones of memorial 
— older than history — speak the secret faith of the 
ancient peoples. These stones are also to be found 
in Brittany, in various parts of France and Spain ; 
nay, throughout Europe, and occurring to recognition, 
in fact, in all parts of the world — old and new. 

Stonehenge, with its inner and outer circles of 
stones, enclosing the central mythic object, or altar ; 
all the Druidic or Celtic remains ; stones on the 
tops of mountains, altar-tables in the valley ; the 
centre measuring, or obelisk, stones, in market-places 
or centre-spaces in great towns, from which the high- 
ways radiated, spaced — in mileage — to distance ; that 
time-honoured relic, ' London Stone still extant in 
Cannon Street, London ; the Scottish ' sacred stone 
with its famous oracular gifts, vulgarly called Jacob's 
Pillow, transported to England by the dominant 
Edward the First, and preserved in the seat of the 
Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey ; even the 

115 



n6 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



placing of upright stones as tombstones, which is 
generally accepted as a mere means of personal record 
— for, be it remembered, the ancients placed tablets 
against their walls by way of funeral register ; all 
follow the same rule. We consider all these as vari- 
ations of the upright commemorative pillar. 

The province of Brittany, in France, is thickly 
studded with stone pillars, and the history and man- 
ners of its people teem with interesting, and very 
curious, traces of the worship of them. In these parts, 
and elsewhere, they are distinguished by the name 
of Menhirs and Peulvans. The superstitious venerat- 
ion of the Irish people for such stones is well known. 
M. de Freminville says in his Antiquites du Finisterre, 
p. 106 : ' The Celts worshipped a divinity which 
united the attributes of Cybele and Venus \ This 
worship prevailed also in Spain — as, doubtless, through- 
out Europe — inasmuch as we find the Eleventh and 
Twelfth Councils of Toledo warning those who offered 
worship to stones that they were sacrificing to devils. 

We are taught that the Druidical institution of 
Britain was Pythagorean, or patriarchal, or Brah- 
minical. The presumed universal knowledge which 
this order possessed, and the singular customs which 
they practised, have afforded sufficient analogies 
and affinities to maintain the occult and remote origin 
of Druidism. A Welsh antiquary insists that the 
Druidical system of the Metempsychosis was con- 
veyed to the Brahmins of India by a former emigration 
from Wales. But, the reverse may have occurred, 
if we trust the elaborate researches which would 
demonstrate that the Druids were a scion of the 
Oriental family. The reader is referred to Toland's 
History of the Druids, in his Miscellaneous Works, 
vol. ii, p. 163 ; also to a book published in London in 
1829, with the title The Celtic Druids ; or, An Attempt 



THE DRUIDS 



117 



to show that the Druids were the Priests of Oriental 
Colonies, who emigrated from India , by Godfrey Higgins. 
A recent writer confidently intimated that the know- 
ledge of Druidism must be searched for in the Tal- 
mudical writings ; but another, in return, asserts 
that the Druids were older than the Jews. 
. Whence and when the British Druids transplanted 
themselves to this lone world amid the ocean, no 
historian can write. We can judge of the Druids 
simply by the sublime monuments which are left of 
them, surviving, in their majestic loneliness, through 
the ages of civilization. Unhewn masses or heaps of 
stones tell alone their story ; such are their cairns, 
and cromlechs, and corneddes, and that wild archi- 
tecture, whose stones hang on one another, still frown- 
ing on the plains of Salisbury. 

Among the most remarkable ancient remains in 
Wales (both North and South) are the Druidical 
stones : poised in the most extraordinary manner — 
a real engineering problem — the slightest touch will 
sometimes suffice to set in motion the Logan, or rock- 
ing, stones, whether these balanced masses are found 
in Wales or elsewhere. We think that there is very 
considerable ground for concluding that all these 
mounted stones were oracular, or, so to express it, 
speaking ; and that, when sought for divine responses, 
they were caused first to tremble, then to heave, and 
finally, like the tables of the modern (so-called) Spirit- 
ualists, to tip intelligibly. To no other reason than 
this could we satisfactorily refer the name under 
which they are known in Wales : namely, ' bowing- 
stones \ For the idea that they were denominated 
' bowing-stones 9 because to the people they formed 
objects of adoration is a supposition infinitely less 
satisfactory. The reader will perceive that we admit 
the phenomenon, when the mysteriousr apport is effected, 



n8 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



of the spontaneous sensitiveness and ultimate sym- 
pathetic motion of solid objects. No one who has 
witnessed the strange, unexplained power which tables, 
after proper preparation, acquire of supplying intellig- 
ent signals — impossible as it may seem to those 
who have not witnessed and tested these phenomena 
— but will see that there is great likelihood of these 
magic stones having been reared and haunted by the 
people for this special sensitive capacity. This idea 
would greatly increase the majesty and the wonder 
of them ; in other respects, except for some extra- 
ordinary and superstitious use, these mysterious, 
solitary stones appear objectless. 

The famous ' Round Table ' of King Arthur — in 
regard to which that mystic hero is understood to 
have instituted an order of knighthood 1 — may have 
been a magical consulting-disc, round which he and 
his peers sat for oracular directions. As it is of large 
dimensions, it presents a similarity not only to some 
of the prophesying-stones, but also, in a greater degree, 
to the movable enchanted drums of the Lapps and 
Finns, and to the divining-tables of the Shamans of 
Siberia. There lies an unsuspected purpose, doubt- 
less of a mysterious (very probably of a superstitious 
and supernatural) character, in this exceedingly ancient 
memorial of the mythic British and heroic time at 
Winchester. 

When spires or steeples were placed on churches, 
and succeeded the pyramidal tower, or square or 
round towers, these pointed erections were only the 
perpetuations of the original monolith. The universal 
signal was reproduced through the phases of archi- 
tecture. The supposition that the object of the 
steeple was to point out the church to the surrounding 

1 It was also something else — to which we make reference in 
other parts of our book 



CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN MYSTIC LIGHTS 119 

country explains but half its meaning. At one period 
of our history, the signal-lights abounded all over 
the country as numerously as church-spires do in the 
present days. Exalted on eminences, dotting hills, 
spiring on cliffs, perched on promontories — from sea 
inland, and from the interior of the country to broad 
river-side and to the sea-shore — rising from woods, 
a universal telegraph, and a picturesque landmark 
— the tower, in its meaning, spoke the identical, uncon- 
scious tradition with the blazing Baal, Bael, or Beltane 
Fires : those universal votive torches, which are lost 
sight of in the mists of antiquity, and which were so 
continual in the Pagan countries, so reiterated through 
the early ages, and which still remain so frequent in 
the feudal and monastic periods — these were all con- 
nected closely with religion. The stone tower was 
only, as it were, a ' stationary flame \ The origin of 
beacons may be traced to the highest antiquity. Accord- 
ing to the original Hebrew (which language as the 
Samaritan, is considered by competent judges as the 
very oldest), the word ' beacon ' may be rendered a 
mark, monolith, pillar, or upright. At one time the 
ancient Bale, Bel, or religious fires of Ireland were 
general all over the country. They have been clearly 
traced to a devotional origin, and are strictly of the 
same character as the magic, or Magian, fires of the 
East. During the political discontents of 1831 and 
1832, the custom of lighting these signal-fires was 
very generally revived amidst the party-distractions 
in Ireland. In the ancient language of this country, 
the month of May is yet called ' nic Beal tienne or 
the month of Beal (Bel or Baal's) fire. The Beltane 
festival in the Highlands has been ascribed to a similar 
origin. Druidical altars are still to be traced on many 
of the hills in Ireland, where Baal (Bel or Beal) fires 
were lighted. Through the countries, in the pr^ent 



120 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



day, which formed the ancient Scandinavia, and in 
Germany, particularly in the North, on the first of 
May, as in celebration of some universal feast or festival, 
fires are even now lighted on the tops of the hills. 
How closely this practice accords with the super- 
stitious usages of the Bohemians, or ' Fire-kings/ 
of Prague, is discoverable at a glance. All these 
western flames are representative of the early fire, 
which was as equally the object of worship of the 
Gubhs, Guebres, or Gaurs of Persia, as it is the admitted 
natural principle of the Parsees. Parsees, Bohemians, 
the Gipsies or Zingari, and the Guebres, all unite in a 
common legendary fire-worship. 

Beside the ancient market-crosses and wayside 
Gothic uprights, of which so many picturesque speci- 
mens are yet to be found in England, Wales, and 
Scotland, we may enumerate the splendid funeral- 
crosses raised by the brave and pious King Edward 
to the memory of his wife. Holinshed writes : ' In 
the nineteenth yeare of King Edward, queene Elianor, 
King Edward's wife, died, upon saint Andrew's euen, 
at Hirdebie, or Herdelie (as some haue), neere to 
Lincolne. In euerie towne and place where the corpse 
rested by the waie, the King caused a crosse of cun- 
ning workmanship to be erected in remembrance of 
hir'. Two of the like crosses were set up at London 
— one at 1 Westcheape ' (the last but one), ' and the 
other at Charing ', which is now Charing Cross, and 
where the last cross was placed. 

The final obsequies were solemnized in the Abbey 
Church at Westminster, on the Sunday before the 
day of St. Thomas the Apostle, by the Bishop of Lin- 
coln ; and the King gave twelve manors and hamlets 
to the Monks, to defray the charges of yearly obits, 
and of gifts to the poor, in lasting commemoration 
of his beloved consort. 



QUEEN-ELEANOR CROSSES 



121 



Some writers have stated the number of crosses 
raised as above at thirteen. These were, Lincoln, 
Newark, Grantham, Leicester, Stamford, Geddington, 
Northampton, Stoney-Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, 
St. Alban's, Waltham, Westcheape (Cheapside), not 
far from where a fountain for a long time took the 
place of another erection, and where the statue of 
Sir Robert Peel now stands. The last place where 
the body rested, whence the memorial-cross sprung, 
and which the famous equestrian statue of King 
Charles the First now occupies, is the present noisy 
highway of Charing Cross ; and, as then, it opens to 
the royal old Abbey of Westminster. What a changed 
street is this capital opening at Charing Cross, White- 
hall, and Parliament Street from the days — it almost 
then seeming a river-bordered country road — when 
the cross spired at one end, and the old Abbey closed 
the views southwards. 

In regard to the royal and sumptuous obsequies of 
Queen Eleanor, Fabian, who compiled his Chronicles 
towards the latter part of the reign of Henry VII, 
speaking of her burial-place, has the following remark : 
' She hathe II wexe tapers brennynge upon her tombe 
both daye and nyght. Which so hath contynned syne 
the day of her buryinge to this present daye\ 

The beacon-warning, the Fiery Cross of Scotland, 
the universal use of fires on the tops of mountains, 
on the seashore, and on the highest turrets of castles, 
to give the signal of alarm, and to telegraph some 
information of importance, originated in the first 
religious flames. Elder to these summoning or notify- 
ing lights was the mysterious worship to which fire 
rose as the answer. From religion the beacon 
passed into military use. On certain set occasions, 
and on special Saints' Days, and at other times of 
observance, as the traveller in Ireland well knows, 



122 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the multitude of fires on the tops of the hills, and in 
any conspicuous situation, would gladden the eyes 
of the most devout Parsee. The special subject of 
illumination, however we may have become accustomed 
to regard it as the most ordinary expression of triumph, 
and of mere joyous celebration, has its origin in a 
much more abstruse and sacred source. In Scotland, 
particularly, the reverential ideas associated with 
these mythic fires are strong. Perhaps in no country 
have the impressions of superstition deeper hold than in 
enlightened, thoughtful, educated, and (in so many 
respects) prosaic Scotland ; and in regard to these 
occult and ancient fires, the tradition of them, and 
the ideas concerning their origin, are preserved as a 
matter of more than cold speculation. Country 
legendary accounts and local usages — obtained from 
we know not whence — all referring to the same myth, 
all pointing to the same Protean superstition, are 
traceable, to the present, in all the English counties. 
Cairns in Scotland ; heaps of stones in by-spots in 
England, especially — solitary or in group — to be 
found on the tops of hills ; the Druidical mounds 
the raising of crosses on the Continent, in Germany, 
amongst the windings of the Alps, in Russia (by the 
roadside, or at the entrance of villages), in Spain, in 
Poland, in lonely and secluded spots ; probably even 
the first use of the ' sign-post ' at the junction of 
roads ; all these point, in strange, widely radiant 
suggestion, to the fire-religion. 

Whence obtained is that word ' sign ' as designat- 
ing the guide, or direction, post, placed at the inter- 
section of cross-roads ? Nay, whence gained we 
that peculiar idea of the sacredness, or of the ' for- 
bidden attaching to the spot where four roads meet ? 
It is sacer, as sacred, in the Latin ; ' extra-church 
or ' heathen', supposedly 'unhallowed \ in the modern 



LIGHTS ON CHRISTIAN ALTARS 123 

acceptation. The appellative ob in the word 'obelisk' 
means occult, secret, or magic. Ob is the biblical 
name for sorcery. It is also found as a word signifying 
converse with forbidden spirits, among the negroes on 
the coast of Africa, from whence — and indicating 
the practices marked out by it — it was transplanted 
to the West Indies, where it still exists. 

It is well known that a character resembling the 
Runic alphabet was once widely diffused throughout 
Europe. 'A character, for example, not unlike the 
hammer of Thor, is to be found in various Spanish 
inscriptions, and lurks in many magical books. Sir 
William Jones proceeds our author — we quote from 
the Times of the 2nd of February 1859, i n reviewing a 
work upon Italy by the late Lord Broughton — ' has 
drawn a parallel between the deities of Meru and 
Olympus ; and an enthusiast might perhaps maintain 
that the vases of Alba Longa were a relic of the times 
when one religion prevailed in Latium and Hindustan. 
It is most singular that the Hindoo cross is precisely 
the hammer of Thor'. All our speculations tend to 
the same conclusion. One day, it is a discovery of 
cinerary vases ; the next, it is etymological research ; 
3< T et again, it is ethnological investigation ; and, the 
day after, it is the publication of unsuspected tales 
from the Norse ; but all go to heap up the proofs of 
our consanguinity with the peoples of History — and 
of an original general belief, we might add. 

What meaneth the altar, with its mysterious lights ? 
What mean the candles of the Catholic worship, burn- 
ing even by day, borne in the sunshine, blazing at 
noon ? What meaneth this visible fire, as an element 
at Mass, or at service at all ? Wherefore is this thing, 
Light, employed as a primal witness and attestation 
in all worship ? To what end, and expressive 
of what mysterious meaning — surviving through the 



124 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



changes of the faiths and the renewal of the Churches, 
and as yet undreamt — burn the solemn lamps in multi- 
tude, in their richly worked, their highly wrought, 
cases of solid gold or of glowing silver, bright-glancing 
in the mists of incense, and in the swell or fall of 
sacredly melting or of holily entrancing music ? Before 
spiry shrine and elaborate drop-work tabernacle ; 
in twilight hollow, diapered as into a ' glory of stone 
and in sculptured niche ; in the serried and starry ranks 
of the columned wax, or in rows of bossy cressets — 
intertwine and congregate the perfumed flames as im- 
plying the tradition eldest of time ! What meaneth, 
in the Papal architectural piles, wherein the Ghostly 
Fire is enshrined, symbolic real fire, thus before the 
High Altar ? What speak those constellations of 
lights ? what those ' silvery stars of Annunciation ' ? 
What signifieth fire upon the altar ? What gather 
we at all from altars and from sacrifice — the delivering, 
as through the gate of fire, of the first and the best of 
this world, whether of the fruits, whether of the flocks, 
whether of the primal and perfectest of victims, or 
the rich spoil of the ' world-states ' ? What mean 
the human sacrifices of the Heathen ; the passing of 
the children through the fire to Moloch ; the devot- 
ion of the consummate, the most physically perfect, 
and most beautiful, to the glowing Nemesis, in that 
keenest, strangest, yet divinest fire-appetite * the 
offered plunder, the surrendered lives, of the pre- 
datory races ? What signifies the sacrifice of Iphigenia, 
the burning of living people among the Gauls, the 
Indian fiery immolations ? What is intended even by 
the patriarchal sacrifices ? What is the meaning of 
the burnt offerings, so frequent in the Bible ? In short, 
what read we, and what seem we conclusively to 
gather, we repeat, in this mystic thing, and hitherto 
almost meaningless, if not contradictory and silencing 



CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN MYSTIC LIGHTS 125 



institution of sacrifice by fire ? What gather we, other- 
wise than in the explanation of the thing signified, 
by it ? We speak of sacrifice as practised in all ages, 
enjoined in all holy books, elevated into veneration, 
as a necessity of the highest and most sacred kind. 
We find it in all countries — east, west, north, and 
south ; in the Old equally as in the New World. 
From whence should this strange and unexplainable 
rite come, and what should it mean ? as, indeed, what 
should mean the display of bright fire at all in the 
mysteries, Egyptian, Cabiric, Scandinavian, Eleu- 
sinian, Etrurian, Indian, Persian, Primal American, 
Tartarian, Phoenician, or Celtic, from the earliest of 
time until this very modern, instant, English day of 
candles on altars, and of the other kindred religious 
High-Church lightings ? — respecting which there 
rankleth such scandal, and intensifieth such purpose- 
less babble, such daily dispute ! What should all 
this inveterate ritualistic (as it is absurdly called) 
controversy, and this ill-understood bandying, be 
about ? Is it that, even at this day, men do not 
understand anything about the symbols of their re- 
ligion, and that the things for which they struggle 
are mere words ? really that the principles of their 
wonderful and supernatural faith are perfectly un- 
known, and that they reason with the inconclusiveness, 
but with nothing of the simplicity of children — nothing 
of the divine light of children ? 

But, we would boldly ask, what should all this 
wealth of fire-subjects mean, of which men guess so 
little, and know less ? What should this whole prin- 
ciple of fire and of sacrifice be ? What should it 
signify but the rendering over, and the surrender-up, 
in all abnegation, of the state of man, of the best and 
most valued ' entities ' of this world, past and through 
the fire, which is the boundary and border and wall 



126 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



between this world and the next ? — that last element 
of all, on which is all — Fire — having most of the light 
of matter in it, as it hath most of the blackness of 
matter in it, to make it the fiercer ; and both being 
copy, or shadow, of the Immortal and Ineffable Spirit- 
Light, of which, strange as it may sound, the sun is 
the very darkness ! because that, and the whole Creation 
— as being Degree, or even, in its wonders, as Greater 
or Less — beautiful and godlike as it is to man, is as 
the shadow of God, and hath nothing of Him ; but 
is instituted as the place of purification, ' being 
or punishment : the opposite of God, the enemy of 
God, and, in its results, apart from the Spirit of 
God — which rescues supernaturally from it — the 
denier of God ! This world and its shows — nay, 
Life — stands mystically as the Devil, Serpent, 
Dragon, or ' Adversary \ typified through all time ; 
the world terrestrial being the ashes of the fire 
celestial. 

The torches borne at funerals are not alone for 
light ; they have their mystic meaning. They mingle 
largely, as do candles on altars, in all solemn celebrat- 
ions. The employment of light in all religious rites, 
and in celebration in the general sense, has an over- 
poweringly great meaning. Festival, also, claims 
flame as its secret signal and its password to the 
propitious Invisible. Lights and flambeaux and 
torches carried in the hand were ever the joyous 
accompaniment of weddings. The torch of Hymen 
is a proverbial expression. The ever-burning lamps 
of the ancients ; the steady, silent tomb-lights (burn- 
ing on for ages), from time to time discovered among 
the mouldering monuments of the past in the hypogea. 
or sepulchral caves, and buildings broken in upon by 
men in later day ; the bonfires of the moderns ; the 
fires on the tops of hills ; the mass of lamps disposed 



CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN MYSTIC LIGHTS 127 



about sanctuaries, whether encircling the most sacred 
point of the mosque of the Prophet, the graded and 
cumulative Grand Altar in St Peter's, or the saint- 
thrones in the churches of the Eternal City, or else- 
where, wherever magnificence riseth into expansion, 
and intensiiieth and overpowereth in the sublimity 
which shall be felt ; the multitudinous grouped lamps 
in the Sacred Stable — the Place of the Holy Nativity, 
meanest and yet highest — at Bethlehem ; the steady, 
constant lights ever burning in mystic, blazing attest- 
ation in Jerusalem, before the tomb of the Redeemer ; 
the chapelle ardente in the funeral observances of the 
ubiquitous Catholic Church; the congregated tapers 
about the bed of the dead — the flames in mysterious 
grandeur (and in royal awe), placed as in waiting, 
so brilliant and striking, and yet so terrible, a court, 
and surrounding the stately catafalque ; the very 
word falcated, as bladed, sworded, or scimitared (as 
with the guard of waved or sickle-like flames) ; the 
lowly, single candle at the bedside of the poverty- 
attenuated dead — thus by the single votive light 
only allied (yet in unutterably mystic and godlike 
bond) as with the greatest of the earth ; the watch- 
lights everywhere, and in whatever country ; the 
crosses (spiry memorials, or monoliths) which rose 
as from out the earth, in imitation of the watching 
candle, at whatever point rested at night, in her solemn 
journey to her last home, the body of Queen Eleanor, 
as told in the English annals (which flame-memorials, 
so raised by the pious King Edward in the spiry, 
flame-imitating stone, are all, we believe, obliterate 
or put out of things, but the well-known, magnificent, 
restored cross at Waltham) ; all these, to the keen, 
philosophic eye, stand as the best proofs of the diffusion 
of this strange Fire-Dogma : mythed as equally, also, 
in that ' dark veiled Cotytto ' : 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



She to whom the flame 
Of midnight torches burns. 

' She this blackest of concealment in the mys- 
teries, Isis, Io, Ashtaroth, or Astarte, or Cybele or 
Proserpine ; 4 he this Baal, Bel, ' Baalim \ Foh, 
Brahm, or Bhudd ; ' it ' — for the Myth is no personality, 
but sexless — Snake, Serpent, Dragon, or Earliest at 
all of Locomotion, under whatever ' Letter of the 
Alphabet ' — all these symbols, shapes, or names, 
stand confessed in that first, absolutely primal, deified 
element, Fire, which the world, in all religions, has 
worshipped, is worshipping, and will worship to the 
end of time, unconsciously ; we even in the Christian 
religion, and in our modern day, still doing it — un- 
witting the meaning of the mysterious symbols which 
pass daily before our eyes : all which point, as we 
before have said, to Spirit-Light as the soul of the 
World — otherwise, to the inexpressible mystery of the 
Holy Ghost. 

Little is it suspected what is the myth conveyed 
in the Fackeltanz and Fackelzug of Berlin, of which 
so much was heard, as a curious observance, at the 
time of the marriage of the Princess Royal of England 
with the Prince Frederick William of Prussia. This 
is the Teutonic perpetuation of the ' Bacchic gloryings 
of the Saturnian rout and flame-brandishing of the 
earliest and last rite. 

The ring of light, glory, nimbus , aureole, or circle 
of rays, about the heads of sacred persons ; the hand 
(magnetic and mesmeric) upon sceptres ; the open 
hand borne in the standards of the Romans ; the 
dragon crest of Maximin, of Honorius, and of the 
Barbarian Leaders ; the Dragon of China and of Japan ; 
the Dragon of Wales ; the mythic Dragon trampled 
by St. George ; the ' crowned serpent ' of the Royal 
House of Milan ; the cairns, as we have already 



THE GHOSTLY FLAME 



129 



affirmed, and the Runic Monuments ; the Round 
Towers of Ireland (regarding which there hath been 
so much, and so diverse and vain speculation) ; the 
memorial piles, and the slender (on seashore and up- 
land) towers left by the Vikinghs, or Sea-Kings, in 
their adventurous and predatory voyages ; the legends 
of the Norsemen or the Normans ; the vestiges so 
recently, in the discovery of the forward-of-the-old- 
time ages, exposed to the light of criticism, in the 
time-out-of-mind antique and quaint cities of the 
extinct peoples and of the forgotten religions in Central 
America : the sun or fire-worship of the Peruvians, 
and their vestal or virgin-guardians of the fire ; 
the priestly fire-rites of the Mexicans, quenched by 
Cortez in the native blood, and, the context of their 
strange, apparently incoherently wild, belief ; the 
inscriptions of amulets, on rings and on talismans ; 
the singular, dark, and in many respects, uncouth 
arcana of the Bohemians, Zingari, Gitanos, or Gipsies ; 
the teaching of the Talmud ; the hints of the Cabala : 
also that little-supposed thing, even, meant in the 
British golden collar of ' S.S.', which is worn as a relic 
of the oldest day (in perpetuation of a mythos long 
ago buried — spark-like — and forgotten in the dust 
of ages) by some of our officials, courtly and otherwise, 
and which belongs to no known order of knighthood, but 
only to the very highest order of knighthood, the 
Magian, or to Magic ; all these point, as in the diverg- 
ing radii of the greatest of historical light-suns, to 
the central, intolerable ring of brilliancy, or the phenom- 
enon—the original God's revelation, eldest of all creeds, 
survivor, almost, of Time — of the Sacred Spirit, or 
Ghostly Flame — the baptism of Fire of the Apostles ! 

In this apparently strange — nay, to some minds, 
alarming — classification, and throwing under one head, 
of symbols diametrically opposed, as holy and unholy, 

K 



130 



THE R0S1CRVCIANS 



benign and sinister, care must be taken to notice 
that the types of the ' Snake ' or the ' Dragon ' stand 
for the occult 1 World-Fire \ by which we mean the 
' light of the human reason or ' manifestation ' 
in the general sense, as opposed to the spiritual light, or 
unbodied light ; into which, as the reverse — although 
the same — the former transcends. Thus, shadow is 
the only possible means of demonstrating light. It 
is not reflected upon that we must have means whereby 
to be lifted. After all, we deal only with glyphs , to 
express inexpressible things. Horns mean spirit- 
manifestation ; Radius signifies the glorying absorpt- 
ion (into the incomprehensible) of that manifestation. 
Both signify the same : from any given point, the 
One Spirit working downwards, and also transcending 
upwards. From any given point, in height, that the 
intellect is able to achieve, the same spirit downwards 
intensifies into Manifestation ; upwards, dissipates 
into God. In other words, before any knowledge 
of God can be formed at all, it must have a shape. 
God is an abstraction ; Man is an entity. 



A 




CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH 

INQUIRY AS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF MIRACLE 

The definition of a miracle has been exposed to numer- 
ous erroneous views. Inquirers know not what a 
miracle is. It is wrong to assume that nature and 
human nature are alike invariably, and that you can 
interpret the one by the other. There may be in 
reality great divergence between the two, though both 
start from the common point — individuality. A 
miracle is not a violation of the laws of nature (because 
nature is not everything), but a something indepen- 
dent of all laws — that is, as we know laws. The mis- 
take that is so commonly made is the interpreting 
— or rather the perceiving, or the becoming aware of 
— that thing we denominate a miracle through the 
operation of the human senses, which in reality have 
nothing whatever to do with a miracle, because they 
cannot know it. If nature, as we understand it, 
or law, as we understand it, be universal, then, as 
nothing can be possible to us which contradicts either 
the one or the other (both being the same) — nature being 
law, and law being nature — miracle must be impossible, 
and there never was, nor could there ever be, such 
a thing as a miracle. But a miracle works outwardly 
from us at once, and not by a human path — moves 
away from the world (that is, man's world) as a thing 
impossible to it, though it may be true none the less, 
since our nature is not all nature, nor perhaps any 
nature, but even a philosophical delusion. In the 
conception of a miracle, however, the thing appre- 

131 



i 3 2 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

hended revolves to us, and can come to us in no other 
way, and we seize the idea of it through a machinery 
— our own judgment — which is a clear sight com- 
pounded of our senses — a synthesis of senses that, in 
the very act of presenting an impossible idea, destroys 
it as humanly possible. Miracle can be of no date or 
time, whether earlier, whether later, if God has not 
withdrawn from nature ; ,and if He has withdrawn 
from nature, then nature must have before this fallen 
to pieces of itself ; for God is intelligence — not life 
only ; and matter is not intelligent, though it may 
be living. It is not seen that during that space — which 
is a space taken out of time, though independent of it 
— in which miracle is possible to us, we cease to be 
men, because time, or rather sensation, is man's 
measure ; and that when we are men again, and back 
in ourselves, the miracle is gone, because the con- 
viction of the possibility of a thing and its non-possib- 
ility has expelled it. The persuasion of a miracle is 
intuition, or the operation of God's Spirit active in us, 
that drives out nature for the time, which is the opposite 
of the miracle. 

No miracle can be justified to men's minds, because 
no amount of evidence can sustain it ; no number of 
attestations can affirm that which we cannot in our 
nature believe. In reality, we believe nothing of 
which our senses do not convince us — even these not 
always. In other matters, we only believe because we 
think we believe ; and since the conviction of a miracle 
has nothing of God except the certain sort of motive 
of possessed, excluding exaltation, which, with the 
miracle, fills us, and to which exaltation we can give 
no name, and which we can only feel as a certain 
something in us, a certain power and a certain light, 
conquering and outshining another light, become 
fainter — it will follow that the conviction of the 



QUESTIONS AS TO DREAMS 



133 



possibility of a miracle is the same sort of unquestion- 
ing assurance that we have of a dream in the dream 
itself ; and that, when the miracle is apprehended in 
the mind, it just as much ceases to be a miracle when 
we are in our senses, as a dream ceases to be that 
which it was, a reality, and becomes that which it is, 
nonentity, when we awake. But to the questions, 
what is a dream ? — nay, what is waking ? — who 
shall answer ? or who can declare whether in that 
broad outside, where our minds and their powers 
evaporate or cease, where nature melts away into 
nothing that we can know as nature, or know as any- 
thing else, in regard to dreams and realities, the one 
may not be the other ? The dream may be man's 
life to him — as another life other than his own life 
— and the reality may be the dream (in its various 
forms), which he rejects as false and confusion simply 
because it is as an unknown language, of which, 
out of his dream, he can never have the alphabet, 
but of which, in the dream, he has the alphabet, 
and can spell well because that life is natural to him. 

'A pretence that every strong and peculiar expression 
is merely an Eastern hyperbole is a mighty easy way 
of getting rid of the trouble of deep thought and 
right apprehension, and has helped to keep the world 
in ignorance/ — Morsels of Criticism, London, 1800. 

It is very striking that, in all ages, people have 
clothed the ideas of their dreams in the same imagery. 
It may therefore be asked whether that language, 
which now occupies so low a place in the estimation 
of men, be not the actual waking language of the 
higher regions, while we, awake as we fancy ourselves, 
may be sunk in a i sleep of many thousand years, 
or at least, in the echo of their dreams, and only 
intelligibly catch a few dim words of that language 
of God, as sleepers do scattered expressions from the 



*34 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



loud conversation of those around them\ So says 
Schubert, in his Symbolism of Dreams. There is 
every form of the dream-state, from the faintest to 
the most intense, in which the gravitation of the out- 
side world overwhelms the man-senses, and absorbs 
the inner unit. In fact, the lightest and faintest form 
of dream is the very thoughts that we think. 

A very profound English writer, Thomas de Quincey, 
has the following : ' In the English rite of Confir- 
mation, by personal choice, and by sacramental oath, 
each man says, in effect : " Lo ! I rebaptize myself ; 
and that which once was sworn on my behalf, now 
I swear for myself." Even so in dreams, perhaps, 
under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, 
lighted up to consciousness at the time, but darkened 
to the memory as soon as all is finished, each several 
child of our mysterious race may complete for himself 
the aboriginal fall/ 

As to what is possible or impossible, no man, out 
of his presumption and of his self-conceit, has any 
right to speak, nor can he speak ; for the nature of 
his terms with all things outside of him is unknown 
to him. We know that miracle (if once generally be- 
lieved in) would terminate the present order of things, 
which are perfectly right and consistent in their own 
way. Things that contradict nature are not evoked 
by reason, but by man in his miracle-worked imagin- 
ing, in all time ; and such exceptions are independent 
of reason, which elaborates to a centre downwards, 
but exhales to apparent impossibilty (but to real 
truth) upwards, that is, truth out of this world. 

Upwards has nothing of man ; for it knows him 
not. He ceases there ; but he is made as downwards, 
and finds his man's nature there, lowest of all — his 
mere bodily nature there perhaps, even to be found 
originally among the four-footed ; for by the raising 



THE POWER OF MUSIC 



X35 



of him by God alone has Man got upon his feet, and 
set his face upward to regard the stars — those stars 
which originally, according to the great ' Hermes 
Trismegistus ' (Thrice-Master), in the astrological 
sense, raised him from the primeval level ; for we 
refer heaven always to a place over our heads, since 
there only we can be free of the confinements of matter ; 
but above us or below us is equally the altitude. 

, May not the sacrificial, sacramental rites — may not 
those minute acts of priestly offering, as they succeed 
each other, and deepen in intensity and in meaning 
— may not those aids of music to enlarge and change 
and conjure the sense of hearing, and to react on 
sight (it being notorious that objects change their 
character really as we look at them when operated 
upon by beautiful music) — may not those dream- 
producing, somnolent, enchanting vapours of incense, 
which seem to loosen from around each of us the walls 
of the visible, and to charm open the body, and to let 
out (or to let in) new and unsuspected senses, alight 
with a new light not of this world, the light of a new 
spiritual world, in which we can yet see things, and 
see them as things to be recognized — may not all 
this be true, and involve impossibilities as only seem- 
ing so, but true enough ; inasmuch as miracle 
possibly is true enough ? 

May not all these effects, and may not the place 
and the persons in the body, and may not the sug- 
gestions, labouring to that end, of unseen, unsuspected, 
holy ministries, such as thronging angels, casting off 
from about us our swathes and bands of thick mor- 
tality in the new, overmastering influence — may not 
all this be as the bridge across which we pass out 
from this world gladly into the next, until we meet, 
as on the other side, Jesus, the Ruler in very deed, 
but now felt as the Offered^ the Crucified, the com- 



136 



THE R0SICIWC1ANS 



plete and accepted ' Living Great Sacrifice ' ? May we 
not in this ' Eucharist ' partake, not once, but again 
and again, of that — even of that solid — which was our 
atonement, and of that blood which was poured out 
as the libation to the ' Great Earth profaned by 
c Sin partaking of that reddest (but that most tran- 
scendency lucent) sacrament, which is to be the new 
light of a new world ? Is' not the very name of the 
intercommunicating High-Priest that of the factor of 
this mystic, glorious, spirit-trodden, invisible f bridge '? 
Whence do we derive the word Pontifex, or Pontifex 
Maximus (the Great, or the Highest, Bridge-Maker, 
or Builder), elicited in direct translation from the 
two Latin words pons and facio in the earliest pre- 
Christian theologies, and become ' Pontiff ' in the 
Roman and the Christian sense — ' Pontiff ' from 
' Pontifex , ? 

It is surely this meaning — that of fabricator or 
maker of the bridge between things sensible and 
things spiritual, between body and spirit, between this 
world and the next world, between the spiritualizing 
' thither ' and the substantiating ' hither \ trans 
being the transit. The whole word, if not the whole 
meaning, may be accepted in this Roman Catholic 
sense of ■ transubstantiation or the making of miracle. 
Never ' Idolatry 1 — but ' Idea ' recognizing and acknow- 
ledging. 



CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH 



CAN EVIDENCE BE DEPENDED UPON ? EXAMINATION 
OF HUME'S REASONING 

' Our evidence for the truth oi the Christian religion 
is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses ; 
because, even in the first authors of our religion, it 
was no greater. It is evident it must diminish in 
passing from them to their disciples ; nor can any one 
rest such confidence in their testimony as in the imme- 
diate object of his senses.' 

This is wrong. The testimony of some men is 
more valid than is the evidence of the senses of some 
others. All depends upon the power of the mind 
judging. 

' It is a general maxim, that no objects have any 
discoverable connexion together. All the inferences 
which we can draw from one to another are founded 
merely on our experience of their constant and regular 
conjunction. It is evident that we ought not to 
make an exception to this maxim in favour of human 
testimony, whose connexion with any event seems 
in itself as little necessary as any other.' 

It may be put to any person who carefully con- 
siders Hume's previous position as to the fixedness 
of the proofs of the senses, whether this last citation 
does not upset what he previously affirms. 

' The memory is tenacious to a certain degree. 
Men commonly have an inclination to truth and a 
principle of probity. They are sensible to shame 

137 



138 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



when detected in a falsehood. These are qualities 
in human nature/ 

This is a mistake ; for they are not qualities in 
human nature. They are the qualities of grown men, 
because they are reflective of the state of the man 
when he is living in community — not as man. 

• Contrariety of evidence, in certain cases, may 
be derived from several different causes : from the 
opposition of contrary testimony — from the character 
or number of the witnesses — from the manner of 
their delivering their testimony — or from the union 
of all these circumstances. We entertain a suspicion 
concerning any matter of fact when the witnesses 
contradict each other — when they are but few, or of a 
doubtful character — when they have an interest in 
what they affirm — when they deliver their testimony 
with hesitation, or, on the contrary, with too violent 
asseverations. There are many other particulars 
of the same kind, which may diminish or destroy the 
force of any argument derived from human testimony/ 

Now, we contest these conclusions; and we will 
endeavour to meet them with a direct overthrowing 
answer. The recognition of likelihood — not to say 
of truth — is intuitive, and does not depend on testi- 
mony. In fact, sometimes our belief goes in another 
direction than the testimony, though it be even to 
matters of fact. 

Hume resumes with his cool, logical statements : 
' The reason why we place any credit in witnesses 
and historians is not derived from any connexion 
which we perceive a priori between testimony and 
reality, but because we are accustomed to find a con- 
formity between them.'' 

Just so ! we would add to this ' because we are 
accustomed to find a conformity between them/ 

We are now arrived at the grand dictum of cool- 



MIRACLES AND EXPERIENCE 139 

headed, self-possessed Hume, who thought that by 
dint of his logical clearness, and by his definitions, 
he had exposed the impossibility of that unaccount- 
able thing which men call a miracle, and upon the 
possibility or the non-possibility of which religion 
will be ultimately found to wholly depend, because 
religion is entirely opposed to laws of ' must be ' 
and ( must not be \ 

- A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature 9 
he declares. 

Not so, we will rejoin. It is only a violation of 
the laws of our nature. A very different thing. We 
have no right to set our nature up as the measure 
of all nature. This is merely the mind's assumption ; 
and it is important to expose its real emptiness, be- 
cause all Hume's philosophy turns upon this, which 
he imagines to be a rigid axiom, to which all argument 
must recur. 

* A firm and unalterable experience has established 
the laws of nature. The proof against a miracle, 
from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any 
argument from experience can possibly be imagined.' 
So says Hume. 

But experience has nothing to do with a miracle, 
because it is a sense not comprised in the senses, but 
an unexperienced sensation or perception, exposing 
the senses as dreams, and overriding their supposed 
certainty and totality by a new dream, or apparent 
certainty, contradicting the preceding. If this were 
not possible, then the senses, or the instantaneous 
judgment which comes out of their sum — or the thing 
1 conviction ' as we call it — would be the measure of 
everything past, present, and to come — which we 
know it is not. 

Hume, or any philosopher, is wrong in dogmatizing 
at all, because he only speaks from his own experi- 



140 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



ence ; and individual experience will in no wise assist 
towards the discovery of real truth. In philosophy, 
no one has a right to lay down any basis, and to assume 
it as true. The philosopher must always argue nega- 
tively, not affirmatively. The moment he adopts 
the latter course, he is lost. Hume presupposes all 
his Treatise on Miracles in this single assumption that 
nature itself has laws, and not laws only to our facul- 
ties. The mighty difference between these two great 
facts will be at once felt by a thinker ; but we will 
not permit Hume to assume anything where he has 
no right, and so to turn the flank of his adversary 
by artfully putting forward unawares and carrying 
an assumption. Nature is only nature in man's mind, 
but not true otherwise, any more than that the universe 
exists out of the mind — or out of the man, who has in 
thinking to make it. Take away, therefore, the 
man in whom the idea of it is, and the universe dis- 
appears. We will question Hume, the disbelieving 
philosopher, as to his right to open his lips, because 
it is very doubtful if language, which is the power 
of expression, any more than that which we call con- 
sistent thought, is inseparably consistent to man, 
who is all inconsistence in his beginning, middle, 
and end — in his coming here and in his going hence 
from here, out of this strange world ; to which he 
does not seem really to belong, and in which world 
he seems to have been somehow obtruded, as some- 
thing not of it — strange as this seems. 

As to the philosophy of Hume, granting the ground, 
you have, of course, all the basis for the constructions 
raised upon that ground. But suppose we, who argue 
in opposition to Hume, dispute his ground ? 

Hume, in his Treatise on Miracles, only begs the 
question ; and there is therefore no wonder that, 
having first secured his position by consent or negli- 



IDEAS AND EMOTIONS 



141 



gence of the opponent, he may deal from it the shot 
of what artillery he pleases ; and his opponent, having 
once allowed the first ground — or the capacity to 
argue — has unwittingly let in all the ruinous results 
which follow ; these philosophically are indisputable. 
We would urge that Hume has no capacity to argue 
in this way, inasmuch as he has taken the ' human 
mind ' as the capacity of arguing. Either reason or 
miracle must be first removed, because you can admit 
either ; for they are opposites, and cannot camp in 
the same mind : one is idea, the other is no idea — in 
this world ; and as we are in this world, we can only 
judge as in this world. In another world, Hume 
the philosopher may himself be an impossibility, and 
therefore be a miracle, through his own philosophy, 
and the application of it. 

Hume is the man of ideas, and is therefore very 
correct, as a philosopher, if philosophy were possible ; 
but we deny that it is possible in regard to any specu- 
lation out of this world. Ideas — that is, philosophical 
ideas — may be described as the steps of the ladder 
by which we philosophically descend from God. Emot- 
ions are also the steps by which alone we can ascend 
to Him. Human reason is a possibility, from the 
line drawn by which either ascent or descent may 
be made. The things Necessity, or Fate, and Free 
Will, passing into the mind of man (both may be 
identical in their nature, though opposite in their 
operation), dictate from the invisible, but persuade 
from the visible. 

-Hume asserts that ' a uniform experience amounts 
to a proof \ It does not do so, any more than ' ninety- 
nine ' are a ' hundred \ 

He also says that ' there is not to be found in all 
history any miracle attested by a sufficient number 
of men to be believed.' Now, we will rejoin to this, 



142 THE R0S1CRUC1ANS 

that a public miracle is a public impossibility ; for 
the moment it has become public, it has ceased to be 
a miracle. ' In the case of any particular assumed 
miracle he further says, * there are not a sufficient 
number of men of such unquestioned good sense, 
education, and learning as to secure us against all 
delusion in themselves — of such undoubted integrity 
as to place them beyond -all suspicion of any design 
to deceive others. 1 Now, to this our answer is, that 
our own senses deceive us ; and why, then, should 
not the asseverations of others ? 

Hume adduces a number of circumstances which, 
he insists, ' are requisite to give us a full assurance 
in the testimony of men ' ; but nothing can give us 
this assurance in other men's testimony that he sup- 
poses. We judge of circumstances ourselves, upon 
our own ideas of the testimony of men — not upon the 
testimony itself • for we sometimes believe that which 
the witnesses, with the fullest reliance upon them- 
selves, deny. We judge upon our own silent con- 
victions — that is, upon all abstract points. It is for 
this reason that assurances even by angels, in Scrip- 
ture, have not been believed by the persons to whom 
the message was directly sent. Of course, if the 
miracle was displayed through the ordinary channels 
of human comprehension, it was no miracle ; for com- 
prehension never has miracle in it. 

' The maxim by which we commonly conduct our- 
selves in our reasonings is, that the objects of which 
we have no experience resemble those of which we 
have ' says Hume. 

Now, this remark is most true ; but we cannot help 
this persuasion. We conclude inevitably that things 
unknown should resemble things known, because, 
whatever may be outside of our nature, we have no 
means of knowing it, or of discovering anything else 



HUME'S INCREDULITY CONTESTED 143 



that is other than ourselves. We can know nothing, 
except through our own machinery of sense. As God 
made outside and inside, God alone works, though we 
think that we — that is, Nature — work. God (who is 
Himself miracle) can effect impossibilities, and make 
two one by annihilating the distinction between them. 

Hume says that ' where there is an opposition of 
arguments, we ought to give the preference to such 
as are founded on the greatest number of fast observat- 
ions' 

So we ought, if the world were real ; but, as it 
is not, we ought not. Things unreal cannot make 
things real. 

Hume declares that ' if the spirit of religion join 
itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common 
sense. Human testimony, in these circumstances, 
loses all pretensions to authority. A religionist may 
be an enthusiast, and imagine he sees what has no 
reality. He may know his narrative to be false, and 
yet persevere in it with the best intentions in the 
world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause. 
Even where this delusion has not taken place, vanity, 
excited by so strong a temptation, operates on him 
more powerfully than on the rest of mankind in any 
other circumstances, and self-interest with equal 
force. His auditors may not have, and commonly 
have not, sufficient judgment to canvass his evidence. 
What judgment they have, they renounce by prin- 
ciple in these sublime and mysterious subjects. If 
they were ever so willing to employ it, passion and 
a heated imagination disturb the regularity of its 
operations. Their credulity increases his impudence, 
and his impudence overpowers their credulity/ 

Now, the reverse of all this is more nearly the fact. 
Ordinary minds have more incredulity than credulity. 
It is quite a mistake to imagine that credulity is the 



144 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



quality of an ignorant mind ; it is rather incredulity 
that is. 

4 Eloquence, when at its highest pitch says Hume, 
' leaves little room for reason or reflection. ' 

Now, on the contrary, true eloquence is the em- 
bodiment or synthesis of reason and reflection. 

' Eloquence ', resumes Hume, ' addresses itself entirely 
to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing 
hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, 
this pitch it seldom attains ; but what a Tully or 
a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman 
or Athenian audience, every capuchin, every itinerant 
or stationary teacher, can perform over the generality 
of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching 
such gross and vulgar passions.' 

All the above is simply superficial assumption. 

Hume then speaks of ' forged miracles and pro- 
phecies ' ; but there is no proof of any forged miracle 
or prophecy. He says that ' there is a strong pro- 
pensity in mankind to the extraordinary and the 
marvellous. There is no kind of report which rises 
so easily and spreads so quickly, especially in country 
places and provincial towns, as those concerning 
marriages, insomuch that two young persons of 
equal condition never see each other twice, but the 
whole neighbourhood immediately join them to- 
gether.' 

This is all nonsense. There is always a reason for 
these suppositions. 

* Hume then goes on to adduce this same love oi 
inspiring curiosity and delight in wonders as the 
cause of the belief in miracles. 

' Do not ', he asks, ' the same passions, and others 
still stronger, incline the generality of mankind to 
believe and report, with the greatest vehemence anc 1 
assurance, all religious miracles ? : 



COMMON SENSE NOT ALL SENSE 145 

Now, this is only very poor ; and, besides, it is all 
assumption of truths where they are not. 

Hume speaks of supernatural and miraculous rela- 
tions as having been received from ' ignorant and 
barbarous ancestors \ But what is ignorance and 
barbarism ? — and what is civilization ? He says that 
they have been ' transmitted with that inviolable 
sanction and authority which always attend received 
opinions'. But supernatural and miraculous relat- 
ions have never been received opinions. They have 
always been contested, and have made their way 
against the common sense of mankind, because the 
common sense of mankind is common sense, and 
nothing more ; and, in reality, common sense goes 
but a very little way, even in the common trans- 
actions of life ; for feeling guides us in most matters. 

' All belief in the extraordinary ', Hume declares, 
' proceeds from the usual propensity of mankind 
towards the marvellous, which only receives a check 
at intervals from sense and learning ' . But what are 
sense and learning both but mere conceits ? 

* " It is strange ", a judicious reader is apt to say 
remarks Hume, ' upon the perusal of these wonderful 
histories, " that such prodigious events never happen 
in our days". ' But such events do occur, we would 
rejoin ; though they are never believed, and are always 
treated as fable, when occurring in their own time. 

'It is experience only', says Hume, 'which gives 
authority to human testimony ' . Now, it is not experi- 
ence only which induces belief, but recognition. It 
is not ideas, but light. We do not go to the thing in 
ideas, but the thing comes into us, as it were : for 
instance, a man never finds that he is awake by experi- 
ence, but by influx of the thing ' waking ' — whatever 
the act of waking is, or means. 

' When two kinds of experience are contrary, we 

L 



146 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



have nothing to do but to subtract the one from the 
other, and embrace an opinion either on one side or 
the other, with that assurance which arises from the 
remainder/ 

This which follows may be a conclusion in regard 
to the above. If beliefs were sums, we should, and 
could, subtract the difference between two amounts 
of evidence, and accept the product ; but we cannot 
help our beliefs, because they are intuitions, and not 
statements. 

Hume towards the close of his strictly hard and 
logical Treatise on Miracles, brings forward an argu- 
ment, which to all appearance is very rigid and con- 
clusive, out of this his realistic philosophy — if that 
were true : 

1 Suppose that all the historians who treat of England 
should agree that on the 1st of January 1600 Queen 
Elizabeth died, that both before and after her death 
she was seen by her physicians and the whole court, 
as is usual with persons of her rank, that her successor 
was acknowledged and proclaimed by the parlia- 
ment, and that, after being interred a month, she 
again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed 
England for three 3^ears. I must confess that I should 
be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd cir- 
cumstances, but should not have the least inclination 
to believe so miraculous an event. / should not 
doubt of her pretended death, and of those other public 
circumstances that followed it! 

Now, in their own sequence, as they occur to us 
as real facts in the world, so unreal even are true, 
positive circumstances, that we only believe them by 
the same means that we believe dreams — that is, by 
intuition. There is no fact, so to say. Startling as 
it may appear, I appeal to the consciousness of those 
who have witnessed death whether the death itself 



BUDDHISTIC OR BHU DDI STIC MAYA 147 

did not seem unreal, and whether it did not remain 
without belief as a fact until the negative — that is 
' The dead man is not here ' — affirmed it, not through 
present persuasions, but through unreal incidents, 
post-dating reappearance. 

' As to the belief in miracles, Hume asserts that the 
Christian religion cannot be believed by any reason- 
able person without a miracle. ' Mere reason he 
assures us, ' is insufficient to convince us of its verac- 
ity ; and whoever is moved by faith to assent to 
it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own 
person, which subverts all the principles of his under- 
standing/ 

The theosophic foundation of the Bhuddistic Maya, 
or Universal Illusion, has been finely alluded to by 
Sir William Jones, who was deeply imbued with the 
Oriental mysticism and transcendental religious views. 

' The inextricable difficulties \ says he, ' attending 
the vulgar notion of material substances, concerning 
which we know this only, that we know nothing, 
induced many of the wisest among the ancients, and 
some of the most enlightened among the moderns, to 
believe that the whole creation was rather an energy 
than a work, by which the Infinite Being, who is 
present at all times and in all places, exhibits to the 
minds of His creatures a set of perceptions, like a 
wonderful picture or piece of music, always varied, 
yet always uniform ; so that all bodies and their 
qualities exist, indeed, to every wise and useful pur- 
pose, but exist only as far as they are perceived — 
a theory no less pious than sublime, and as different 
from any principle of atheism as the brightest sun- 
shine differs from the blackest midnight.' 



CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH 



FOOTSTEPS OF THE ROSICRUCIANS AMIDST ARCHI- 
TECTURAL OBJECTS 

Thomas Vaughan, of Oxford, a famous Rosicrucian, 
whom we have before mentioned, and who in the year 
1650 published a book upon some of the mysteries 
of the Rosicrucians, has the following passage. His 
work is entitled Anthroposophia Theomagica ; it has 
a supplemental treatise, called Aninia Magica Abscon- 
dita ; we quote from pages 26 and 27 of the united 
volume : 

1 In regard of the Ashes of Vegetables says Vaughan, 
' although their weaker exterior Elements expire by 
violence of the fire, yet their Earth cannot be destroyed, 
but is Vitrified. The Fusion and Transparency of 
this substance is occasioned by the Radicall moysture 
or Seminal water of the Compound. This water resists 
the fury of the Fire, and cannot possibly be van- 
quished. " In hac Aqua (saith the learned Severine), 
Rosa latet in Hieme" These two principles are never 
separated ; for Nature proceeds not so far in her 
Dissolutions. When Death hath done her worst, 
there is an Vnion between these two, and out of them 
shall God raise us at the last day, and restore us to 
a spiritual constitution. I do not conceive there shall 
be a Resurrection of every Species, but rather their 
Terrestrial parts, together with the element of Water 
(Jor there shall be " no more sea " ; Revelation), shall 
be united in one mixture with the Earth, and fixed 
to a pure Diaphanous substance. This is St. John's 

148 



ROSI CRUCIAN LI M BUS 149 

Crystall gold, a fundamentall of the New Jerusalem 
— so called, not in respect of Colour, but constitution. 
Their Spirits, I suppose, shall be reduced to their 
first Limbus, a sphere of pure, ethereall fire, like rich 
Eternal Tapestry spread under the Throne of God.' 

Coleridge has the following, which bespeaks (and 
precedes), be it remarked, Professor Huxley's late 
supposed original speculations. The assertion is that 
the matrix or formative substance is, at the base, in 
all productions, ' from mineral to man the same. 

1 The germinal powers of the plant transmute the 
fixed air and the elementary base of water into grass 
or leaves ; and on these the organific principle in the 
ox or the elephant exercises an alchemy still more 
stupendous. As the unseen agency weaves its magic 
eddies, the foliage becomes indifferently the bone 
and its marrow, the pulpy brain or the solid ivory ; 
and so on through all the departments of nature.' — 
Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, 6th edn., vol. i. p. 328. 
See also Herder's Ideen, book v. cap. hi. 

We think that we have here shown the origin of 
all Professor Huxley's speculations on this head 
appearing in his Lectures, and embodied in articles 
by him and others in scientific journals and elsewhere. 

In a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, Mr. 
W. S. Savory made the following remarks : ' There 
is close relationship between the animal and the vege- 
table kingdoms. The organic kingdom is connected 
with both by the process of crystallization, which 
closely resembles some of the processes of vegetation 
and of the growth of the lower orders of animal 
creation.' 

The ' Philosopher's Stone \ in one of its many 
senses, may be taken to mean the magic mirror, or 
translucent ' spirit-seeing crystal ', in which things 
impossible to ordinary ideas are disclosed. ' Know \ 



150 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

says Synesius, ' that the Quintessence 9 (five-essence 
f and hidden thing of our " stone " is nothing less 
than our celestial and glorious soul, drawn by our 
magistery out of its mine, which engenders itself and 
brings itself forth/ The term for ' Chrystal or 
' Crystal ' in Greek, is the following ; which may 
be divided into twin or half-words in the way sub- 
joined : 

XPY2T | — | AAA02. 

Crystal is a hard, transparent, colourless ' stone ' 
composed of simple plates, giving fire with steel, not 
fermenting with acid menstrua, calcining in a strong 
fire, of a regular angular figure, supposed by some 
to be ' formed of dew coagulated with nitre \ 

Amber is a solidified resinous gum, and is com- 
monly full of electricity. It was supposed, in the 
hands of those gifted correspondingly, to abound with 
the means of magic. In this respect it resembles the 
thyrsus or pinecone, which was always carried in 
processions — Bacchanalian or otherwise — in connexion 
with the mysteries. We can consider the name of 
the palace, or fortress, or ' royal ' house in Grenada, 
in Spain, in this respect following. The word ' Alham- 
bra ', or ' Al-Hambra means the ' Red \ In Arabia 
this means the place of eminence, the ' place of places 
or the ' Red in the same acceptation that the sea 
between Arabia and Egypt is called the ' Red Sea \ 
All spirits generally (in connexion with those things 
supposed to be evil or indifferent especially) are ' laid ' 
in the ' Red Sea ', when disposed of by exorcism, or 
in forceful conjuration. We think that this ' Ham- 
bra ' ambra or ' ambre is connected with the 
substance amber, which is sometimes very red, and 
which amber has always been associated with magical 
influence, magical formularies, and with spirits. We 



'RUNES' AND RUNIC REMAINS 151 

have seen an ancient crucifix, carved in amber, which 
was almost of the redness of coral. Amber has always 
been a substance (or gem, or gum) closely mingling 
with superstitions, from the most ancient times. For 
further connected ideas of the word ' amber ' and 
the substance ' amber ' in relation to magic and 
sorcery, and for the recurrence of the word ' amber ' 
and its varieties in matters referring to the mysteries 
and the mythology generally of ancient times, the 
reader will please to refer to other parts of this volume. 

While excavations were in progress at a mound in 
Orkney, described by Mr. John Stuart, Secretary of 
the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, on July 18th, 
1 861, numerous lines of ' runes ' of various sizes were 
found on the walls and on the roof of a large vaulted 
chamber in the earth. When the discoveries were 
completed, the series of runes exceeded 700 in number ; 
figures of ' dragons and a cross ' were also cut on some 
of the slabs. There are many mounds of various 
forms and sizes in this part of Orkney, and there is a 
celebrated circle of Druidical Stones on the narrow- 
peninsula which divides the two lochs of Stennis. 

Pliny says that the word ' boa for a snake, comes 
from ' bovine because ' young snakes are fed with 
cow's milk Here we have the unexpected and unex- 
plained connexion of the ideas of f snake ' and 
f cow'. The whole subject is replete with mystery ^ 
as well as the interchange of the references to the 
' Cross ' and the ' Dragon ' found in the insignia of 
all faiths, and lurking amongst all religious buildings. 

On a Phoenician coin, found at Citium or Cyprus, 
and engraved in Higgins's Celtic Druids, p. 117, may 
be seen a cross and an animal resembling a hippo- 
campus, both of which, or objects closely similar, appear 
on ancient sculptured stones in Scotland. The same 
two things, a cross and a strange-looking animal, 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



half mammal, half fish or reptile, but called by Mr. 
Hodgson, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a Basilisk, appear 
together on a Mithraic sculptured slab of the Roman 
period, found in the North of England. What is 
more remarkable still, the ' star ' and ' crescent 
or ' sun ' and ' moon \ also appear, the whole being 
enclosed in what has been called the ' Fire-Triangle 1 > 
or ' Triangle with its Face Upwards \ 

The Builder } of June 6th, 1863, has some valu- 
able observations on 1 Geometrical and other 

Fig. 22 Symbols \ 

In regard to the word 1 Alhambra we may 
associate another word appropriated to Druidical 
Stones in England, Men- Amber. A famous Logan- 
Stone, commonly called 1 Men-Amber is in the parish 
of Sethney, near Pendennis, Cornwall. It is 11 feet long, 
4 feet deep, and 6 feet wide. From this the following 
derivatives may be safely made : Men-Amber, Mon- 
Amber, Mon-Ambra, Mon-Amrha, Mon-Amra (M'Om- 
Ra, Om-Ra), ' Red Stone or Magic, or Angelic, or 
Sacred Stone. This red colour is male — it signifies 
the Salvator. 

The following is the recognitory mark or talisman 
of the Ophidiae : 3>. The Scarabaeus, Bee, Ass, 
Typhon, Basilisk, Saint-Basil, the town of Basle (Basil, 
or Bale), in Switzerland (of this place it may be re- 
marked, that the appropriate cognisance is a ' basilisk ' 
or a ' snake '), the mythic horse, or hippocampus , of 
Neptune, the lion, winged (or natural), the Pegasus 
or winged horse, the Python, the Hydra, the Bull (Osiris), 
the Cow (or Io), are mythological ideas which have 
each a family connexion. All the above signify an 
identical myth. This we shall presently show con- 
clusively, and connect them all with the worship of 
fire. 

vOur readers have no doubt often wondered to see 



CROSS-LEGGED EFFIGIES 



153 



on the table-monuments in Christian cathedrals a 
creature resembling a dog, or generally like some 
four-footed animal, trampled by the feet of the recum- 
bent effigy. It is generally a male which is represented 
as performing this significant efforcement, trampling 
or piercing with the point of his sword, or the butt 
of the crosier (in his left hand, be it remembered). 
This crosier is the ancient pedum, or lituus. At Brent- 
Pelham, in Hertfordshire, there is a tomb, bearing the 
name of a knight, Pierce Shonke, built in the wall. 
He is said to have died A.D. io85. Under the feet of 
the figure there is a cross- flour ie, and under the cross 
a serpent (Weever, p. 549). There is an inscription 
which, translated, means : 

Nothing of Cadmus nor Saint George, those names of great 
renown, survives them but their names ; 

But Shonke one serpent kills, t'other defies, 
And in this wall, as in a fortress, lies. 

See Weever's Ancient Funeral Monuments. He calls 
the place 1 Burnt Pelham and he says : ' In the 
wall of this Church lieth a most ancient Monument : 
A Stone wherein is figured a man, and about him an 
Eagle, a Lion, and a Bull, having all wings, and a 
fourth of the shape of an Angell, as if they should 
represent the four Evangelists : under the feet of the 
man is a crosse Flourie.' 

1 The being represented cross-legged is not always 
a proof of the deceased having had the merit either 
of having been a crusader , or having made a pilgrimage 
to the Holy Sepulchre. I have seen at Milton, in 
Yorkshire, two figures of the Sherbornes thus repre- 
sented, who, I verily believe, could never have had 
more than a wish to enter the Holy Land.' Pennant 
writes thus of the Temple, London. 



154 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Weever points out, in relation to the monument 
of Sir Pierce or Piers Shonke described above : ' Under 
the Cross is a Serpent. Sir Piers Shonke is thought 
to havve been sometime the Lord of an ancient decaied 
House, well moated, not farre from this place, called 
" O Piers Shonkes He flourished Ann. a con- 
questu, vicesimo ftritno.' — Weever, p. 549. 

' The personation of a dog — their invariable accom- 
paniment, as it is also found amongst the sculptures 
of Persepolis, and in other places in the East — would 




Fig. 23 

in itself be sufficient to fix the heathen appropriation 
of these crosses ' (the ancient Irish crosses), ' as that 
animal can have no possible relation to Christianity ; 
whereas, by the Tuath-de-danaans, it was accounted 
sacred, and its maintenance enjoined by the ordinances 
of the state, as it is still in the Zend books, which 
remain after Zoroaster.' — O'Brien's Round Towers 
of Ireland, 1834, p. 359. 

' I apprehend the word " Sin " came to mean Lion 
when the Lion was the emblem of the Sun at his 
summer solstice, when he was in his glory, and the 
Bull and the " Man " were the signs of the Sun at the 



EGYPTIAN 'EVE' TRAMPLING THE 'DRAGON' 155 

Equinoxes, and the Eagle at the winter solstice/ — 
Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 292. 

Figure 23 is an Egyptian bas-relief, of which the 
explanation is the following : A is the Egyptian 
Eve trampling the Dragon (the goddess Neith, or 
Minerva) ; B, a Crocodile ; C, Gorgon's head ; D, 
Hawk (wisdom) ; E, feathers (soul). 

' The first and strongest conviction which will 
flash on the mind of every ripe antiquary, whilst 
surveying the long series of Mexican and Toltecan 
monuments preserved in these various works, is the 
similarity which the ancient monuments of New 
Spain bear to the monumental records of Ancient 
Egypt. Whilst surveying them, the glance falls with 
familiar recognition on similar graduated pyramids, 
on similar marks of the same primeval Ophite worship, 
on vestiges of the same Triune and Solar Deity, on 
planispheres and temples, on idols and sculptures, 
some of rude and some of finished workmanship, 
often presenting the most striking affinities with the 
Egyptian.' — Stephens and Catherwood's Incidents of 
Travel in Central America. 



CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH 



THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND 

It is astonishing how much of the Egyptian and the 
Indian symbolism of very early ages passed into the 
usages of Christian times. Thus : the high cup and 
the hooked staff of the god became the bishop's mitre and 
crosier ; the term nun is purely Egyptian, and bore 
its present meaning ; the erect oval, symbol of the 




Fig. 24 Fig. 25 Fig. 26 



Female Principle of Nature, became the Vesica Piscis, 
and a frame for Divine Things ; the Crux Ansata, 
testifying the union of the Male and Female Principle 

8 ? 6 I 

Fig. 27 Fig. aS Fig. 29 Fig. 30 

in the most obvious manner, and denoting fecundity 
and abundance as borne in the god's hand, is trans- 
formed, by a simple inversion, into the Orb surmounted 
by the Cross, and the ensign of royalty. Refer to 
The Gnostics and their Remains , p. 72. 

156 




'PHALLI' AT MECCA 157 

The famous ' Stone of Cabar \ 
Kaaba, Cabir, or Kebir, at Mecca, 
which is so devoutly kissed by the 
faithful, is a talisman. It is called 
the ' Tabernacle ' (Taberna, or Shrine) 
of the Star Venus. ' It is said 
that the figure of Venus is seen to 
this day engraved upon it, with a Fig. 31 

crescent.' The very Caaba itself 
was at first an idolatrous temple, where the Arabians 
worshipped ' Al-Uza ' — that is, Venus. See Bobovius, 
Dr. Hyde Parker, and others, for particulars regarding 
the Arabian and Syrian Venus. She is the ' Uraniae- 
corniculatae sacrum ' (Selden, De V en ere Syriaca). 
The ' Ihram is a sacred habit, which consists only of 
two woollen wrappers ; one closed about the middle 
of devotees, to cover ', etc., ' and the other thrown 
over the shoulders.' Refer to observations about 
Noah, later in our book ; Sale's Discourse, p. 121 ; 
Pococke's India in Greece, vol. ii. part i. p. 218. The 
Temple of Venus at Cyprus was the Temple of Venus- 
Urania. 1 No woman entered this temple ' (Sale's 
Koran, chap. vii. p. 119 ; note, p. 149). Accordingly, 
Anna Commena and Glycas (in Renald. De Mah.) 
say that 'the Mahometans do worship Venus '. Several 
of the Arabian idols were no more than large, rude 
stones (Sale's Discourse, p. 20 ; Koran, chap. v. p. 82). 
The stone at Mecca is black. The crypts, the subter- 
ranean churches and chambers, the choirs, and the 
labyrinths, were all intended to enshrine (as it were) 
and to conceal the central object of worship, or this 
sacred 'stone'. The pillar of Sueno, near Forres, 
in Scotland, is an obelisk. These obelisks were all 
astrological gnomons, or ' pins ', to the imitative 
stellar mazes, or to the ' fateful charts ', in the ' letter- 
written ' skies. The astronomical ' stalls ', or ' stables ' 



158 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



were the many ' sections ' into which the ' hosts ' of 
the starry sky were distributed by the Chaldaeans. 
The Decumens (or tenths), into which the ecliptic 
was divided, had also another name, which was Ashre, 
from the Hebrew particle as, or ash, which means 
' fiery or ' fire \ The Romans displayed reverence 
for the ideas connected with these sacred stones. 
Cambyses, in Egypt, left the obelisks or single magic 
stones. The Linghams in India were left untouched 
by the Mohammedan conquerors. The modern Romans 
have a phallus or lingha in front of almost all their 
churches. There is an obelisk, altered to suit Christian 
ideas (and surmounted in most instances in modern 
times by a cross), in front of every church in Rome. 
There are few churchyards in England without a 
phallus or obelisk. On the top is usually now fixed 
a dial. In former times, when the obeliscar form 
was adopted for ornaments of all sorts, it was one of 
the various kinds of Christian acceptable cross which 
was placed on the summit. We have the single stone 
of memorial surviving yet in the Fire-Towers (Round 
Towers of Ireland). This phallus, upright, or 4 pin 
of stone is found in every Gilgal or Druidical Circle. 
It is the boundary-stone or terminus, the parish mark- 
stone ; it stands on every motehill ; lastly (and chiefly), 
this stone survives in the stone in the coronation chair 
at Westminster (of which more hereafter), and also in 
the famous ' London Stone or the palladium, in Cannon 
Street, City of London : which stone is said to be 
4 London's fate ' — which we hope it is not to be in the 
unprosperous sense. 

The letter 4 S among the Gnostics, with its grim- 
mer or harsher brother (or sister) 1 Z \ was called the 
' reprobate ' or c malignant ' letter. Of this por- 
tentous sigma (or sign) 4 S ' (the angular and not 
serpentine 4 S ' is the grinding or bass ' S ' — the letter 



ROUND TOWERS ARE FIRE-TOWERS 159 



Z Dionysius the Halicarnassian says as follows : 
ihat the 4 letter S makes a noise more brutal than 
human. Therefore the ancients used it very spar- 
ingly ' (' Tie pi arwQes 1 : see, also, sect. 14 of Origin 
and Progress of Language, vol. ii. p. 233). 

Notwithstanding the contentions of opposing anti- 
quaries, and the usually received ideas that the ' Irish 
Round Towers ' were of Christian, and not heathen, 
origin, the following book, turning up very unex- 
pectedly, seems to settle the question in favour of 
O'Brien, and of those who urge the incredibly ancient 
devotion of the Round Towers to a heathen myth 
— fire-worship, in fact. 

' John O'Daly, 9 Anglesea Street, Dublin. Cata- 
logue of Rare and Curious Books, No. 10, October 
1855, Item. 105 : De Antiquitate Turrum Belanorum 
Pagana Kerriensi, et de Architectura non Campanilis 
Ecclesiasticce, T. D. Corcagiensi, Hiberno. Small zfto, 
old calf, with numerous woodcut engravings of Round 
Towers interspersed through the text, £10. Lovanii, 
1610/ The bookseller adds : ' I never saw another 
copy of this curious old book.' This book — which 
there is no doubt is genuine — would seem finally to 
settle the question as to the character of these Irish 
Round Towers, which are not Christian belfries, as 
Dr. George Petrie, and others sharing his erroneous 
beliefs, persistently assure us, but heathen Lithoi, or 
obelisks, in the sense of all those referred to in other 
parts of this work. They were raised in the early 
religions, as the objects of a universal worship. All 
antiquaries know of what object the phallus stands 
as the symbolical representation. It needs not to be 
more particular here. 

The ' Fleur-de-Lis ' is a sacred symbol descending 
from the Chaldseans, adopted by the Egyptians, who 
converted it into the deified ' scarab the emblem of 



i6o 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the Moon-god ; and it is perpetuated in that mystic- 
ally magnificent badge of France, the female 1 Lily 
or ( Lis '. All the proofs of this lie concealed in our 
Genealogy of the Fleur-de-Lis (p. 47 and following 
pages, also post), and the ' Flowers-de-Luce or the 
' Fleurs-de-Lis ', passim. It means ' generation or 
the vaunt realized of the Turkish Soldan, ' Donee 
totum impleat orbem \ The ' Prince of Wales's Feathers 
we believe to be, and to mean, the same thing as this 
sublime ' Fleur-de-Lis ' . It resembles the obj ect closely, 
with certain effectual, ingenious disguises. The origin 
of the Prince of Wales's plume is supposed to be the 
adoption of the king's crest (by Edward the Black 
Prince, at the battle of Cressy), on the discovery of 
the slain body of the blind King of Bohemia. Bohemia 
again ! — the land of the ' Fire-worshipping Kings ' 
whose palace, the Radschin, still exists on the heights 
near Prague. We believe the crest and the motto of 
the Prince of Wales to have been in use, for our Princes 
of Wales, at a much earlier period, and that history, 
in this respect, is perpetuating an error — perhaps an 
originally intended mistake. We think the following, 
which appears now for the first time, will prove this 
fact. Edward the Second, afterwards King of Eng- 
land, was the first Prince of Wales. There is reason 
to suppose that our valiant Edward the First, a mon- 
arch of extraordinary acquirements, was initiated into 
the knowledge of the abstruse Orientals. An old 
historian has the following : ' On their giving ' (i.e. the 
assembled W^elsh) 1 a joyful and surprised assent to 
the King's demand, whether they would accept a 
king born really among them, and therefore a true 
Welshman, he presented to them his new-born son, 
exclaiming in broken Welsh " Eich dyn ! ", that is 
" This is your man " — which has been corrupted into 
the present motto to the Prince of Wales's crest, " Ich 



PRINCE OF WALES'S PLUME 161 

dien or " I serve ■ The meaning of ' 1 serve ' in 
this view, is, that ' I ' suffice, or ' the Lis or ' the act \ 
suffices (refer to pages and figures post), for all the 
phenomena of the world. 




CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH 



PRISMATIC INVESTITURE OF THE MICROCOSM 

The chemical dark rays are more bent than the lumin- 
ous. The chemical rays increase in power as you 
ascend the spectrum, from the red ray to the violet. 
The chemical rays typified by the Egyptians under 
the name of their divinity, Taut or Thoth, are most 
powerful in the morning ; the luminous rays are most 
active at noon (Isis, or abstractedly ' manifestation ') ; 
the heating rays (Osiris) are most operative in the 
afternoon. The chemical rays are the most powerful 
in spring (germination, ' producing or ' making '), 
the most luminous in the summer (ripening, or ' know- 
ing '), the most heating in the autumn (perpetuating). 
The chemical rays have more power in the Temperate 
Zone ; the luminous and heating, in the Tropical. 
There are more chemical rays given off from the centre 
of the sun than from the parts near its circumference. 
Each prismatic atom, when a ray of light strikes 

upon it, opens out on a 
.a *5 J r L / vertical axis, as a radius or 
//\\ / fan of seven different 



to diagram above.) 

' The Egyptian Priests chanted the seven vowels 
as a hymn addressed to Serapis ' (Eusebe-Salverte, 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus), 




( widths 1 of the seven col- 
ours, from the least refrang- 
ible red up to the most 
refrangible violet. (Refer 



162 



RELATION BETWEEN COLOUR AND SOUND 163 

1 The vowels were retained to a comparatively 
late period in the mystic allegories relative to the 
Solar System.' ' The seven vowels are consecrated 
to the seven principal planets ' (Belot, Chiromancie, 
16th cent.). 

The cause of the splendour and variety of colours 



Most Refrangible Ray 




Least Refrangible Ray 
Fig. 33 : Prismatic Spectrum 

lies deep in the affinities of nature. There is a singular 
and mysterious alliance between colour and sound. 
There are seven pure tones in the diatonic scale, 
because the harmonic octave is on the margin, or 
border, or rhythmic point, or the First and Seventh, 
like the chemical dark rays on the margin of the solar 
spectrum. (See explanatory chart of the Prismatic 
Colours above.) 

Red is the deep bass vibration of ether. To pro- 
duce the sensation of red to the eye, the luminous 
line must vibrate 477 millions of millions of times in 
a second. Blue, or rather purple, is the high treble 
vibration, like the upper C in music. There must be 
a vibration of 699 millions of millions in a second 
to produce it ; while the cord that produces the high 
C must vibrate 516 times per second. 

Heat, in its effect upon nature, produces colours and 
sounds. The world's temperature declines one degree 



164 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



at the height of 100 feet from the earth. There is a 
difference of one degree in the temperature, corres- 
ponding to each 1,000 feet/ at the elevation of 30,000 
feet. Colouration is effected, at the surface of the 
earth, to the same amount in one minute that takes 
half an hour over three miles high, in the full rays 
of the sun. The dissemination of light in the at- 
mosphere is wholly due to the aqueous vapour in it. 
The spectrum is gained from the sun. In the air op- 
posite to it, there is no spectrum. These conclusions 
result from balloon observations made in April 1863, 
and the philosophical deductions are a victory for 
' aqueous vapour \ 

It has been demonstrated that flames are both 
sensitive and sounding ; they have, therefore, special 
affinities. 

' The author of The Nature and Origin of Evil is 
of opinion that there is some inconceivable benefit 
in Pain, abstractly considered ; that Pain, however 
inflicted or wherever felt, communicates some good 
to the General System of Being ; and that every 
animal is some way or other the better for the pain of 
every other animal. This opinion he carries so far as 
to suppose that there passes some principle of union 
through all animal life, as attraction is communicated 
to all corporeal nature ; and that the evils suffered on 
this globe may by some inconceivable means contri- 
bute to the felicity of the inhabitants of the remotest 
planet.' — Contemporary review of the Nature and 
Origin of Evil. 

c Without subordination, no created System can 
exist : all subordination implying Imperfection ; all 
Imperfection, Evil ; and all Evil, some kind of Incon- 
veniency or Suffering/ — Soame Jenyns, Free Enquiry 
into tkn Nature and Origin of Evil. 

1 Whether Subordination implies Imperfection may 



NATURE AND ORIGIN OF EVIL 165 



be disputed. The means respecting themselves may 
be as perfect as the end. The Weed as a Weed is no 
less perfect than the Oak as an Oak. Imperfection 
may imply primitive Evil, or the Absence of some 
Good ; but this Privation produces no Suffering, but 
by the Help of Knowledge/ 1 Here the point of 
view is erroneously taken for granted. The end of the 
oak, in another comprehension, may be the weed, as 
well as the end of the weed the oak. The contraries 
may be converse, out of oar appreciation.' — Review 
of the above work in Miscellaneous and Fugitive Pieces. 
London : T. Davies, 1774. 

' There is no evil but must inhere in a conscious 
being, or be referred to it ; that is, Evil must be felt 
before it is Evil.' — Review of A Free Enquiry into 
the Nature and Origin of Evil, p. 5 of the same Mis- 
cellaneous and Fugitive Pieces. London : T. Davies, 
Russell Street, Covent Garden, Bookseller to the 
Royal Academy. 1774. Query, whether the Review 
of this Book, though attributed to Dr. Johnson, be 
not by Soame Jenyns himself, the author of the book ? 

' Thoughts, or ideas, or notions — call them what 
you will — differ from each other, not in kind, but in force. 
The basis of all things cannot be, as the popular philos- 
ophy alleges, mind. It is infinitely improbable that 
the cause of mind — that is, of existence — is similar to 
mind.' — Shelley's Essays. The foregoing is contained 
in that on Life. He means Reason, in this objection 
to Mind. Shelley further remarks : ' The words I, 
and you, and they, are grammatical devices, in- 
vented simply for arrangement, and totally devoid 
of the intense and exclusive sense usually attached 
to them.' 

In the Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. 
William Whiston, part ii. (1749); there occur the follow- 
ing observations : 



i66 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



' N.B. — I desire the reader to take notice that the 
very learned Gerard John Vossius, in his three accurate 
dissertations , De Tribus Symbolis, or Of The Three 
Creeds — that called The Apostles' Creed, that called 
The Athanasian Creed, and that called the Nicene or 
Constantinopolitan Creed, with the Filioque, has proved 
them to be all falsely so called : that the first was 
only the Creed of the Roman Church about a.d. 400 ; 
that the second was a forgery about 400 years after 
Athanasius had been dead, or about a.d. 767, and 
this in the West and in the Latin Church only, and 
did not obtain in the Greek Church till about 400 
years afterwards, or about a.d. 1200 ; and that the 
third had the term Filioque first inserted into it about 
the time when the Athanasian Creed was produced, 
and not sooner, or about a.d. 767/ 



CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH 



CABALISTIC INTERPRETATIONS BY THE GNOSTICS 

To indicate God's existence, the ancient sages of 
Asia, and many Greeks, adopted the emblem of pure 
fire, or ether. 

' Aerem amplectatur immensus aether, qui constat 
exaltissimis ignibus ' (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 
lib. ii. c. 36.) ' Ccelum ipsum stellasque colligens, 
omnisque siderum compago, aether vocatur, non ut 
quidem putant quod ignitus sit et insensus, sed quod 
cursibus rapidis semper rotatur ' (Apuleius, De Mundo). 
Pythagoras and Empedocles entertained similar the- 
ories (Brucker, 1, c. i. p. 113). Parmenides also 
represented God as a universal fire which surrounded 
the heavens with its circle of light and fire (Cicero, 
De Natura Deorum, lib. iii. c. 2). Hippasus, Heraclitus, 
and Hippocrates imagined God as a reasoning and 
immortal fire which permeates all things (Cudworth, 
Sy sterna Intellectuale, p. 104 ; and Gesnerus, De 
Animis Hippocratis). Plato and Aristotle departed 
but little from this in their teachings ; and Democritus 
called God ' the reason or soul in a sphere of fire ' 
(Stobaeus, Eclogce Physicce, lib. vii. c. 10.) Cleonethes 
considered the sun as the highest god (Busching, 
Grundriss einer Geschichte dir Philosophie, 1 Th. p. 
344). We find, therefore, in the earliest ages, an 
aether (spiritual fire) theory, by which many modern 
theorists endeavour to explain the phenomena of 
magnetism. This is the ' iEtheraeum ' of Robert 
Flood, the Rosicrucian. 

X67 



i68 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Fire, indeed, would appear to have been the chosen 
element of God. In the form of a flaming ' bush ' 
He appeared to Moses on 'Mount Sinai. His presence 
was denoted by torrents of flame, and in the form 
of fire He preceded the band of Israelites by night 
through the dreary wilderness ; which is perhaps the 
origin of the present custom of the Arabians, ' who 
always carry fire in front of their caravans ' (Reade's 
Veil of I sis). All the early fathers held God the 
Creator to consist of a ' subtile fire \ When the 
Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles on the Day 
of Pentecost, it was in the form of a tongue of fire, 
accompanied by a rushing wind. See Anacalypsis, 
vol. i. p. 627 (Parkhurst, in voce rn). 

The personality of Jehovah is, in Scripture, repre- 
sented by the Material Trinity of Nature ; which 
also, like the divine antitype, is of one substance. 
The primal, scriptural type of the Father is Fire ; 
of the Word, Light ; and of the Holy Ghost, Spirit, 
or Air in motion. This material Trinity, as a type, 
is similar to the material trinity of Plato • as a type, 
it is used to conceal the f Secret Trinity \ See Ana- 
calypsis, vol. i. p. 627. Holy fires, which were never 
suffered to die, were maintained in all the temples : 
of these were the fires in the Temple of the Gaditanean 
Hercules at Tyre, in the Temple of Vesta at Rome, 
among the Brachmans of India, among the Jews, 
and principally among the Persians. Now to prove 
that all ' appearances ' are ' born of Fire so to speak, 
according to the ideas of the Rosicrucians. 

Light is not radiated from any intensely heated 
gas or fluid. If nitre is melted, it will not be visible ; 
but throw into it any solid body, and as soon as that 
becomes heated it will radiate light ; hence the phenom- 
enon, ' Nasmyth's willow-leaves in the sun, must 
be solid, not gaseous • and through their medium 



IDEAS OF THE BHUDDISTS 



169 



the whole of our light from the sun is doubtless derived. 
See the records of the British Association for the 
Advancement of Science (Cambridge Meeting), October 
1862. These physical facts were known to the ancient 
Persians. 

The ancient ideas upon these subjects have not 
come down to us at all definitely. The destruction 
of ancient manuscripts was effected upon a large scale. 
Diocletian has the credit of having burned the books 
of the Egyptians on the chemistry of gold and silver 
(alchemy). Caesar is said to have burned as many 
as 700,000 rolls at Alexandria ; and Leo Isaurus 
300,000 at Constantinople in the eighth century, about 
the time that the Arabians burned the famous Alex- 
andrian Library. Thus our knowledge of the real 
philosophy of the ancient world is exceedingly limited ; 
almost all the old records, or germinating means 
of knowledge, being rooted out. 

In regard to ' Boudhisme, ou systeme mystique 1 
as he denominates it, a learned author describes it 
as i Metaphysique visionnaire, qui, prenant a tache 
de contrarier l'ordre naturel, voulut que le monde 
palpable et materiel fut une illusion fantastique ; que 
1' existence de l'homme fut un reve dont la mort la etait 
le vrai reveil : que son corps fut une prison impure 
dont il devait se hater de sortir, ou une enveloppe 
grossiere que, pour la rendre permeable a la lumiere 
interne, il devait attenuer, diaphaniser par le jevme^ 
les macerations, les contemplations, et par une foule 
de pratiques anachoretiques si etranges que le vulgaire 
etonne ne put s'expliquer le caractere de leurs auteurs 
qu'en les considerant comme des etres surnaturels, 
avec cette dimculte de savoir s'ils furent Dieu devenu 
homme } ou Vhomme devenu Dieu! — Volney (C. F.), 
Les Rtiines, p. 210. 

' Mind cannot create, it can only perceive,' This 



170 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



hazardous statement, in its utmost extent, is used 
simply as an argument against there being the philo- 
sophical possibility of religion as derivable from reason 
only — which will be found to be the mere operation 
of the forces of the 'world*. No religion is philo- 
sophically capable of being defended on the grounds 
of reason ; though one religion may seem (but, in the 
inner light, it will seem only) to be more reasonable 
(or probable) than another. Divine light, or faith, 
or intuition — in other words, the enlightenment of 
the Holy Spirit (to be recognized under its many 
names) — is that means alone which can carry truth, 
through the exposure of the futility of all know able 
(that is, of all intellectual) truth. Such are the 
abstract notions of the Gnostics, or ' Illuminati 
concerning religion. 

' The curtains of Yesterday drop down, the curtains 
of To-morrow roll up ; but Yesterday and To-morrow 
both are' {Sartor Resartus, edit. 1838, 'Natural- 
Supernaturalism p. 271). To the divine knowledge, 
the future must be as much present as the present 
itself. 

The explorations of the Rosicrucians may be said 
to be ' as keys to masked doors in the ramparts of 
nature, which no mortal can pass through without 
rousing dread sentries never seen upon this side ' 
(A Strange Story, Lord Lytton, vol. i. p. 265). f Omnia 
ex Uno, Omnia in Uno, Omnia ad Unum, Omnia per 
Medium, et Omnia in Omnibus ' (Hermetic axiom). 

In the speculations of the Gnostics, the astronomical 
points Cancer and Capricorn are called the ' Gates 
of the Sun \ Cancer, moreover, is termed the ' Gate 
of Man ' ; Capricorn is the ' Gate of the Gods \ These 
are Platonic views, as Macrobius declares. With the 
influences of the planets, Saturn brings reason and 
intelligence ; Jupiter, power of action ; Mars governs 



PLANETARY INFLUENCES 



171 



the irascible principle, the Sun produces sensation 
and speculation, Venus inspires the appetites, Mercury 
bestows the power of declaring and expressing, and 
the Moon confers the faculty of generating and augment- 
ting the body. The Egyptian ' winged disc ' is a 
symbol of f Tat ', ' Taut ', or ' Thoth ' (Plutarch, 
De I side et stride). The lions' heads, so frequently 
observable in the sculptures decorating fountains, 
bespeak the astral influences under Leo, which pro- 
duce the rains in the ardent month of July ; and in 
this view they are regarded as the discharges of the 
' sacred fountains Lions' heads, with fountains, are 
observable in architecture all the world over. All 
architecture is primarily derivable from two mathematic- 
al lines ( I and — ), which, united (and intersecting), 
form the ' cross ' . The first ' mark ' is the origin of the 
f upright ' tower, pyramid, or imitation ascending 
{ flame of fire which aspires against the force of gravity ; 
also of the steeple, or phallus, all over the world. 
The second, or horizontal, ' mark ' is the symbol of 
the tabernacle, chest, or ark, or fluent or base-line, 
which is the expression of all Egyptian, Grecian, and 
Jewish templar architecture. The union of the two 
lines gives the Christian, universal cross-form, in the 
blending of the ' two dispensations ' — Old and New, or 
' Law ' and ' Gospel '. Now, both of these lines, in the 
Rosicrucian sense, have special magic f powers ', or gifts, 
according to their several places, and according to the 
supernatural extra forces brought specially to bear on 
them through the operations of those who know how 
(and when) to direct the occult power. 

Those powers bestowed upon the original deserving 
' Man ', and not extinguished in the existing ' Man ', 
are his still — if he retain any glimpse of his original 
spark of light. 

Justinus Kerner, in his Schcrin von Prevorst, most 



172 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



ingeniously anatomizes the inner man, and makes 
him consist of ' Seeie u Nerven-geist and ' Geist \ 
The ' Nerven-geist or nervous energy, being of a 
grosser nature, continues united with the f Seele ' on 
its separation from the body, rendering it visible in 
the form of an apparition, and enabling it to effect 
material objects, make noises, move articles, and such- 
like things perceptible to the living sense — in short, to 
f spucken \ According to its nature, this composite 
being takes a longer or shorter time to be dissolved ; 
the ' Geist ' alone being immortal (The Gnostics and 
their Remains , note to p. 46). 

An Ancient Homily on Trinity Sunday has the 
following : f At the deth of a manne, three bells should 
be ronge as his knyll in worship of the Trinitie. And 
for a woman l , who was the Second Person of the Trinitie , 
two bells should be ronge/ Here we have the source 
of the emblematic difficulty among the master-masons, 
who constructed the earlier cathedrals, as to the ad- 
dition and as to the precise value of the second (or 
feminine) tower at the western end (or Galilee) of a 
church. 

Valentinus is called the ' profoundest doctor of the 
Gnosis ' . According to him, the ' Eons ' (angels, or 
effusions) number fifteen pairs, which represent the 
thirty degrees of each sign of the zodiac. The name 
of the great Gnostic deity, Abraxas, is derived as 
follows: ( Ab' or ' Af ' ( f Let it be'); c Rax ' or 
' Rak ' C Adore ') ; ' Sas ' or f Sax ' for ' Sadshi , 
(' Name ')• 1 The entire Gnostic system was not 
derived either from the Kabala, or from the Grecian 
philosophy, but from the East, as Mosheim long ago 
maintained J : so declares the author of The Gnostics 
and their Remains ; but it is a thorough mistake, 

1 This is a curious direct assertion that the Saviour of the World 

was feminine. 



SEVEN ANGELIC 'REGIONS* 173 



both in his authority (Mosheim), and also in himself. 
We shall successfully show this before we have done. 

As soon as Jesus was born, according to the Gnostic 
speculative view of Christianity, Christos, uniting 
himself with Sophia (Holy Wisdom), descended through 
the seven planetary regions, assuming in each an 
analogous form to the region, and concealing his true 
nature from its genii, whilst he attracted into himself 
the sparks of Divine Light they severally retained in 
their angelic essence. Thus Christos, having passed 
through the seven Angelic Regions before the ' Throne ', 
entered into the man Jesus, at the moment of his 
baptism in the Jordan. ' At the moment of his 
baptism in the Jordan ' — mark. Up to that point 
he was natural — but not the ' Christ \ This will 
recall his exclamation of world's disclaimer to the 
Virgin : — ' Woman, what have I to do with thee ? ' 
From that time forth, being supernaturally gifted, 
Jesus began to work miracles. Before that, he had 
been completely ignorant of his mission. When on the 
cross, Christos and Sophia left his body, and returned 
to their own sphere. Upon his death, the two took 
the man ' Jesus and abandoned his material body to 
the earth ; for the Gnostics held that the true Jesus 
did not (and could not) physically suffer on the cross 
and die, but that Simon of Cyrene, who bore his cross, 
did in reality suffer in his room : * And they compel 
one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of 
the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to 
bear his cross ' (St. Mark xv. 21). The Gnostics 
contended that a portion of the real history of the 
Crucifixion was never written. 

Asserting that a miraculous substitution of persons 
took place in the great final act of the ' Crucifixion ', 
the Gnostics maintained that the 1 Son of God ' could 
not surfer physically upon the cross, the apparent 



174 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



sufferer being human only — real body having no part 
with him. 

At the point of the miraculous transference of 
persons, Christos and Sophia (the Divine) left his 
body, and returned to their own heaven. Upon his 
death on earth, the two withdrew the 1 Being ' Jesus 
(spiritually), and gave him another body, made up 
of ether (Rosicrucian Mtherceum). Thenceforward 
he consisted of the two first Rosicrucian principles 
only, soul and spirit ; which was the cause that the 
disciples did not recognize him after the resurrection. 
During his sojourn upon earth of eighteen months 
after he had risen, he received from Sophia (Soph, 
Suph), or Holy Wisdom, that perfect knowledge or 
illumination, that true c Gnosis which he communi- 
cated to the small number of the Apostles who were 
capable of receiving the same. 

The Gnostic authorities are St. Irenaeus in the first 
place, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, 
St. Epiphanius. The Gnostics are divided into sects, 
bearing the names of Valentinians, Carpocratians, 
Basili deans, and Manichaeans. Tm&w, Gnosis, 
Gnossos : thence f Gnostics \ 

As the Son of God remained unknown to the world, 
so must the disciple of Basilides also remain unknown 
to the rest of mankind. As they know all this, and 
yet must live amongst strangers, therefore must 
they conduct themselves towards the rest of the 
world as invisible and unknown. Hence their motto, 
* Learn to know all, but keep thyself unknown ' 
(Irenaeus). 

The speech of an angel or of a spirit with man is 
heard as sonorously as the speech of one man with 
another, yet it is not heard by others who stand near, 
but by the man himself alone. The reason is, that 
the speech of an angel or of a spirit flows first into 



SIGNIFICANCE OF BLACK l 7 $ 

the man's thought, and, by an internal way, into 
his organ of hearing, and thus actuates it from within ; 
whereas the speech of man flows first into the air, 
and, by an external way, into his organ of hearing, 
which it actuates from without. Hence it is evident 
that the speech of an angel and of a spirit with man 
is heard in man, and, since it equally affects the organs 
of hearing, that it is equally sonorous (Swedenborg ; 
also Occult Sciences, p. 93 ; London, 1855). 

The Greek Bacchanals were well acquainted with 
the mythos of Eve, since they constantly invoked 
her, or a person under her name, in their ceremonies. 

Black is the Saturnian colour — also that of the 
Egyptian Isis. Under the strange head of the em- 
bodiment of Deity under darkness, the following 
remarkable facts may be considered : the Virgin and 
Child are depicted black at the Cathedral at Moulins, 
at the famous Chapel of the Virgin at Loretto, in the 
Church of the Annunciation at Rome, at the Church 
of St. Lazaro and the Church of St. Stephen at Genoa, 
at that of St. Francisco at Pisa, at the Church of Brixen 
in the Tyrol, at a church in (and at the Cathedral 
of) Augsburgh, where the black figures are as large 
as life, at the Borghese Chapel in Rome, at the Church 
of Santa Maria Maggiore in the Pantheon, and in 
a small chapel at St. Peter's, on the right-hand side, 
on entering, near the door. The reader can make 
references in his memory to these places, if he be a 
traveller. 

The writer, who goes by the name of Dionysius 
Areopagita, teaches that the highest spiritual truth 
is revealed only to those who have transcended every 
ascent of every holy height, and have left behind 
all divine lights and sounds and heavenly discoursing, 
and have passed into that Darkness where He really 
is (as saith the Scripture) who is All, above all things 



176 THE R0S1CRUCIANS 

r J)e My stic a Theologia, cap. i. sec. 3 ; Hours with 
the Mystics, by R. A. Vaughan, note to book i. 
chap. 2). 

The words graven upon the zone and the feet of 
the Ephesian Diana, which Hesychius has preserved, 
are the following : 

Aski-Kataski \ /' Darkness — Light ' 

Haix-Tetrax inter ted as V Himself ' 
Damnameneus f 1 r The Sun ' 

Aision I V Truth ' 

1 These Ephesian words says Plutarch (Sympos), 
( the Magi used to recite over those possessed with 
devils/ f Damnameneus ' is seen on a Gnostic amulet 
in the De la Turba Collection (The Gnostics, p. 94). 

The Argha had the form of a crescent. The Argo, 
arc, or arche, is the navis biprora. It is clear that, 
as neither the full moon nor the half-moon w r as ever 
the object of worship, it is the crescent horns of the 
moon which imply the significance. These mean 
the woman-deity in every religion. 

The snake associated with the mysteries among 
the Hindoos is the cobra-di-capella. It is said that 
the snake on the heads of all the Idols in Egypt was 
a Cobra. The name of the monarch or Chief Priest 
in Thibet is the Lama, or the Grand Lama. Prester- 
John is the great Priest, or Prestre (Pretre), Ian, 
Ion, Jehan, or John (the Sun). Lamia is the ' snake ' 
among the Ophidians ; Lama is the hand : lamh, 
hand, is a divine name in the Scythian tongue. It 
also means the number 10, and the Roman numeral 
X, which is a cross. Now, the double pyramid, or 

Xhand, (a) of the Egyptians comprises the 
mystic mark signifying the two original prin- 
ciples water and fire, as above — (b) — the union of 
which, as intersecting triangles, forms the famous 



* 



HEATHEN IDEAS AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS 177 



Hexalpha, or 'Solomon's Sear, or 'Wizard's Foot', 
which, according to the Eastern allegory, is placed 
(as that of St. Michael) upon the Rebellious Spirits 
in their 'abyss', or 'prison*. 

Pyr is the Greek name of fire (thence Pyramid), 
and mythologically of the sun, who was the same 
as Hercules. And the great analyser of mythology 
assures us that Pur was the ancient name of Latian 
Jupiter, the father of Hercules ; that he was the 
deity of fire ; that his name was particularly retained 
amongst the people of Prseneste, who had been addicted 
to the rites of fire. Fire, in short, in these mytho- 
logies, as also in all the Christian churches, meets 
us at every turn. But we must not mix up heathen 
ideas and Christian ideas in these matters. 



Moorish Arch. Cathedral of Cordova 



CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH 

MYSTIC CHRISTIAN FIGURES AND TALISMANS 

Our engraving borrows from the West Front of Laon 
Cathedral, France, a Catherine-Wheel (or ' Rose ') 
Window. The twelve pillars, or radii, are the signs 
of the Zodiac, and are issuant out of the glorified 
centre, or opening * rose ' — the sun, or \ beginning 
of all things'. 'King Arthur's Round Table' dis- 
plays the ' crucified ' Rose in its centre. 

In the 'tables' (Tablier, Fr. = Apron), alternating 
with tying-knots, of the Order of the Garter — which 

' Most Noble Order ' was origin- 
ally dedicated, be it remem- 
bered, to the Blessed Lady, or 
to the Virgin Mary — the mi- 
crocosmical, miniature ' King 
Arthur's Round Table ' be- 
comes the individual female 
discus, or organ, waxing and 
waning, negative or in flower, 
positive or natural, alternately 
red and white, as the Rose of the World : Rosa- 
mond, Rosa mundi. And here we will adduce, as our 
justification for this new reading of the origin of the 
Order of the Garter, the very motto of the princely 
order itself : 

178 




ORIGIN OF THE ORDER OF THE 'GARTER' 179 



Honi soit qui mal y pense / 

or, 

* Yoni ' soit qui mal y pense t 

What this ' Yoni ' is, and the changes meant and 
apotheosized through it, the discreet reader will see 
on a little reflection. 

All the world knows the chivalric origin of this 
Most Noble Order of the Garter 1 . It arose in a 
princely act — rightly considered princely, when the 
real, delicate, inexpressibly high-bred motive and its 
circumstances are understood, which motive is syste- 
matically and properly concealed. Our great King 
Edward the Third picked up, with the famous words 
of the motto of the Order of the Garter, the 1 garter ' 
— or, as we interpret it, by adding a new construction 
with hidden meanings, the ' Garder ' (or special cestus, 
shall we call it ?) — of the beautiful and celebrated 
Countess of Salisbury, with whom, it is supposed, 
King Edward was in love. 

The following is from Elias Ashmole : ' The Order of 
the Garter by its motto seems to challenge inquiry and 
defy reproach. Everybody must know the story that 
refers the origin of the name to a piece of gallantry : 
either the Queen or the Countess of Salisbury 
having been supposed to have dropped one of those 
very useful pieces of female attire at a dance ; upon 
which old Camden says, with a great deal of propriety, 
and a most just compliment to the ladies, " Hcbc 
valgus perhibet, nec vilis sane Jicec videatur origo, cum 
nobilitas sub amore jacet" The ensign of the 
order, in jewellery or enamel, was worn originally 
on the left arm. Being in the form of a bracelet to 
the arm, it might possibly divert the attention of the 

1 See post, and through a subsequent Chapter, for particular 
facts — very important in the authentic history of the ' Garter '. 



i8o THE ROSICRUCIANS 

men from the reputed original ; it might be dropped 
and resumed without confusion ; and the only object- 
ion I can see to the use of such an ornament is the 
hazard of mistake from the double meaning of the 
term fteriscelis, which signifies not only a garter, but 
breeches , which our English ladies never wear : " Quae 
Graeci wepicrx^ vocant, nostri Braccas " (braces or 
breeches) " dicunt ", says an ancient Father of the 
Church.' The Garter, to judge thus from Camden, 
was not a garter at all for the leg, but an occasional 
very important item of feminine under-attire ; and 
King Edward's knightly feeling, and the religious 
devotion of the object, will be perceived upon close 
and delicately respectful consideration. 

There is great obscurity as to the character of 
Abraxas, the divinity of the Gnostics. The Eons, or 
Degrees of Advance in the Zodiacal Circle, are thirty 
in number to each of the Twelve Signs, and con- 
sequently there are 360 to the entire Astronomical 
Circle, or 365, counting for each day of the solar 
year. The inscription upon the Gnostic gems, CEOY^ 
is probably intended for OEOY ; ' for the Arabs yet 
substitute the s for the th in their pronunciation ' 
(Gnostics, p. 233 ; Matter, Histoire Critique du Gnosti- 
cisrne). In this ' s ', and the ' th ' standing for it, 
lie all the mysteries of Masonry. 

+ , Christos, was designed for the guide of all that 
proceeds from God. Sophia-x\chamoth is the guide, 
according to the Gnostics, for all proceeding out of 
f matter '. St. Irenaeus, whose period is the end of 
the second century, draws all these startling infer- 
ences from the Book of Enoch, and names f Sophia ' 
as signifying the Divine Wisdom. The Ophite scheme 
seems evidently the Bhuddistic Bythos, answering 
to the first Buddha. Sige, Sophia, Christos, Achamoth, 
Ildabaoth, answer to the successive five others (Gnostics, 



GNOSTIC TEACHING 



181 



p. 27 ; Bellermann's Drei Programmen tiber die Abraxas- 
gemmen, Berlin, 1820 ; Basilides ; Tertullian, De 
Prescript. : ' Serpentem magnificant in tantum, ut 
ilium etiam Christo praeferant.' See Tertullian, Epi- 
phanius, and Theodoret. : St. John iii. 14, also). We 
now refer the reader to some significant figures towards 
the end of our volume, which will be found according 
to their numbers. 

Figure 289 : The Abraxas-god, invested with all 
the attributes of Phoebus. Green jasper ; a unique 
type. The Egyptians call the moon the mother of 
the world, and say it is of both sexes (Plutarch ; 
Spartian, Life of Caracalla). The moon, in a mystic 
sense, is called by the Egyptians male and female. 
The above is a gem in the Bosanquet Collection. In 
the exerque is the address, CABAQ, ' Glory unto 
Thee ! 9 On the reverse, in a cartouche formed by a 
coiled asp — precisely as the Hindoos write the in- 
effable name ' Aum —are the titles IAQ.ABPACA3 
(The Gnostics, p. 86). 

Figure 311 represents Venus standing under a 
canopy supported on twisted columns, arranging her 
hair before a mirror held up by a Cupid ; two others 
hover above her head, bearing up a wreath. In the 
field, 3>A2I2 APIQPIS— ' The Manifestation of Ari- 
oriph \ Venus here stands for the personification 
of the Gnostic Sophia, or Achamoth, and as such is 
the undoubted source of our conventional representa- 
tion of Truth (Montfaucon, pi. clxi). Reverse, figure 
312, which represents Harpocrates seated upon the 
lotus, springing from a double lamp, formed of two 
phalli united at the base. Above his head is his 
title ' Abraxas ? , and over that is the name ' Iao \ 
In the field are the seven planets. The sacred animals 
— the scarab, ibis, asp, goat, crocodile, vulture, em- 
blems of so many deities Oiz. Phre, Thoth, Isis, Merides, 



182 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Bebys, Neith) — the principal in the Egyptian mythol- 
ogy, arranged by threes, form a frame to the design. 
Neatly engraved on a large, bright loadstone (The 
Gnostics, p. 21 1). 

Origin of the Tricolor 

1 THEORY OF SACRAMENTAL MYSTICISM \ ADAPTED FROM THE SPECU- 
LATIONS OF THE SOPHISTS OR GNOSTICS 

Blue White Red 

(B.V.M.) (S.S.) Fire) 

Baptism by Air or Light 

water 

Natural Intermediate * Supernatural 

Nexus 

Bread (' Host ') and Wine (cup denied 

to the Laity) 

Body Spirit : symbolical 

' Blood ' 

Sacramenta ; * Baptism and the Supper of the Lord ' 

From the above cabalistic estimate of the virtues 
of colours, it happens that the colour blue (sky-blue) 
is chosen as the colour for the investiture of infants 
at baptism, and as the colour for children's coffins. 
Blue or white (not white as meaning the ' S.S. ' in 
the sacred sense, but white as the synthesis of material 
elements, or of light, or of ' sinlessness in irresponsi- 
bility ') are children's colours at other times. There 
were two great ordeals — by water, and by fire. The 
one is the occult trial-baptism by water in the sinister 
or left-handed sense, applied to those suspected of 
witchcraft. The other (more perfect and more per- 
fecting) baptism is by symbolical fire. Both rites 
were in use among the Egyptians. (Refer to mystic 
heraldic formulce elsewhere in our book.) The three 
ordeals (or sacraments) of the Ancient Mysteries were 
by ' Water, Air, and Fire \ Thus, also, the Egyptian 



CABALISTIC MACHATALOTH 



183 



Initiations : ' Cave, Cloud, Fire \ So, too, the 
Masonic Initiations. With these meanings, royal coffins 
and investitures are always red (Mars), as meaning 
' royalty active ' ; or imperial purple (Jupiter, or 
perhaps Mercurius — Thoth, Taut, Tat), as ' royalty 
passive', or implying the 'lord of regions'. 

According to the cabalistic view, ' Jacob's Ladder 
which was disclosed to him in a vision, is a meta- 
phorical representation of the powers of alchemy, 
operating through visible nature. The 1 Ladder ' was 
a ' Rainbow ', or prismatic staircase, set up between 
earth and heaven. Jacob's Dream implied a history 
of the whole hermetic creation. There are only 
two original colours, red and blue, representing f spirit ? 
and 4 matter ' ; for orange is red mixing with the 
yellow light of the sun, yellow is the radiance of the 
sun itself, green is blue and yellow, indigo is blue 
tinctured with red, and violet is produced by the 
mingling of red and blue. The sun is alchemic gold^ 
and the moon is alchemic silver. In the operation 
of these two potent spirits, or mystic rulers of the 
world, it is supposed astrologically that all mundane 
things were produced. 

The next following pages explain the mystic analogy 
between colours, language, music, and the seven 
angelic adverse intelligences, supposed by the Gnostics 
to be operative in the ' dissonance of creation ' . These 
represent the descending half of the 1 Machataloth 
as the cabalistic Jews called the Zodiac' united. The 
whole is made up from abstruse sigmas, or the appli- 
cation of Rosicrucianism on its hieroglyphic and 
representative side. 



THE ROSICRUCIAN^ 



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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST 



THE ' ROSY CROSS ' IN INDIAN, EGYPTIAN, GREEK, 
ROMAN, AND MEDIEVAL MONUMENTS 

Though fire is an element in which everything inheres, 
and of which it is the life, still, according to the ab- 
struse and unexplained ideas of the Rosicrucians, it is 
itself another element, in a second non-terrestrial 
element, or inner, non-physical, ethereal fire, in which 
the first coarse fire, so to speak, flickers, waves, bran- 
dishes, and spreads, floating (like a liquid) now here, 
now there. The first is the natural, material, gross 
fire, with which we are familiar, contained in a celestial, 
unparticled, and surrounding medium (or celestial 
fire), which is its matrix, and of which, in this human 
body, we can know nothing. 

In 1867, in Paris, a suggestive philosophical book 
was published, under the title of Hebreu Primitij ; 
Formation des Lettres, ou Chiffres, Signes du Zodiaque 
et Racines Hebraiques, avec leurs Derives dans les L ungues 
de l 1 Orient et de V Europe, par Ad. Lethierry-Barrois. 

Ptha is the emblem of the Eternal Spirit from 
which everything is created. The Egyptians repre- 
sented it as a pure ethereal fire which burns for ever, 
whose radiance is raised far above the planets and 
stars. In early ages the Egyptians worshipped this 
highest being under the name of Athor. He was 
the lord of the universe. The Greeks transformed 
Athor into Venus, who was looked upon by them in 
the same light as Athor (Apuleius, Cicero, Ovid ; 
Ptolemseus, in tetrabibla ; Proclus ; Ennemoser, vol. 

187 



188 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



i. p. 268, trans, by Howitt). ' Among the Egyptians, 
Athor also signified the night (Hesiod, Orpheus). 
1 According to the Egyptians says Jablonski, ' mat- 
ter has always been connected with the mind. The 
Egyptian priests also maintained that the gods ap- 
peared to man, and that spirits communicated with 
the human race/ ' The souls of men are, according 
to the oldest Egyptian doctrine, formed of ether, and 
at death return again to it.' 

The alchemists were a physical branch of the Rosi- 
crucians. The more celebrated authors (and author- 
ities) upon the art and mystery of alchemy are Hermes 
(whose seven chapters and 1 smaragdine table as it 
is called, contain the whole alchemical system) ; 
Geber, the 1 Turba \ 1 Rosary Theatrum Chemicum, 
Bibliotheque Hermetique, Chymical Cabinet ; Artephius, 
Arnoldus de Villa Nova, Raimondus Lullius, Trevisan, 
Nicholas Flamel, Zachareus, Basilius Valentinus, Cos- 
mopolita, and Phiialethes (Thomas Vaughan). Refer 
also to The Hermetical Triumph, or the Victorious 
Philosopher' s Stone : London, 1723 ; Lucas's Travels, 
p. 79 ; Count Bernard of Treviso. Two leading 
works, however, on the hermetic subject are La Chiave 
del Gabinetto 1 S Col. 1681, i2mo, by Joseph Francis 
Borri, an Italian ; and Le Compte de Gabalis, ou En- 
tretiens sur les Sciences Secretes ; imprimee a Paris, 
par Claude Barbin, 1671, i2mo, pp. 150. This book 
is the work of the Abbe de Villars, or is supposed to 
be so. J. V. Andrea, a writer upon hermetic sub- 
jects, was Almoner to the Duke of Wurtemberg, and 
wrote early in the seventeenth century. The Em- 
peror Rudolphus the Second greatly encouraged 
learned men who had made acquaintance with alche- 

1 Mark — the letters G and C are convertible : Thus Gab or 
Cab (' Gab ' ala or ' Cab ' ala). The ' Compte' de ' Gabalis ' is 
properly the ' Compte ' de ' Cabalis or the Count of the ' Cabala \ 



ROBERT FLOOD OR FLUDD 189 

mical lore. At the supposed revival of Rosicrucianism 
in Paris, in March 1623, the Brethren were said to 
number thirty-six ; of whom there were six in Paris, 
six in Italy, six in Spain, twelve in Germany, four 
in Sweden, and two in Switzerland. In 1616, the 
famous English Rosicrucian, Robertus de Fluctibus 
(Robert Fludd), published his defence of the society, 
under the title Apologia Compendiaria, Fraternitatem 
de Rosea-Cruce, Suspicionis et I nf amice maculis asper- 
sam abluens, published in 1616 at Frankfort. Since 
this time, there has been no authentic account of the 
Rosicrucians. We are now the first translators of 
Robert Fludd. 

' Amongst an innumerable multitude of images 
and symbolical figures, with which the walls ' — i.e. 
those of the caverns of initiation at Salsette — ' are 
covered, the Linga or Phallus was everywhere con- 
spicuous, often alone, sometimes united with the petal 
and calyx of the lotus, the point within the circle, 
and the intersection of two equilateral triangles ' 
(Dr. Oliver, History of Initiation. See also Maurice 
on the Indian Initiations). 

The Linga, or pillar, or stone of memorial, in its 
material form, is the perpetuation of the idea of the 
male generative principle, as the physical means, in 
conjunction with the Yoni (Ioni), or discus, of the 
production of all visible things. In this connexion, 
the addition to the name of Simon Peter (Petra, or 
Pietra, Cephas, Jonas, Bar-Jonas, Ionas) will be re- 
called as suggestive. There is a sacred stone in every 
Temple in India. The Stone, or Pillar, or ' Pillow 
of Jacob was sacred among the Jews. It was anointed 
with oil. There was a sacred stone among the Greeks 
at Delphi, which was also anointed with oil in the 
mystic ceremonies. The stone of Caaba, or black 
stone at Mecca, is stated to have been there long before 



190 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the time of Mohammed. It was preserved by him 
when he destroyed the dove and images. The obelisks 
at Rome were, and are, Lingas (or Linghas). In the 
Temple of Jerusalem, and in the Cathedral of Chartres, 
they are in vaults. They are the idea of the abstract 
membrum, or ' affluence ', or means. To the initiated 
mind they imply glory, not grossness. 

Figs. 25-26 are the Crux Ansata of the Egyptians. 
This emblem is also found in India. According to 
Ruffinus and Sozomen, it imports the ' time that is 
to come'. It is a magical symbol. Fig. 27 is the 
imperial mound, and cross-sigma surmounting it. 

Figs. 28-29 are symbols of Venus (Aphrodite), the 
deity of the Syrians and Phoenicians. They are phal- 
lic emblems. 

Fig. 30 is the Phallus proper. It is the sigma of 
Zeus, Mithras, ' Baalim Bacchus. 

Figures numbered 31, ' Osiris ' : these various 
figures signify also Jupiter-Ammon. The rectangular 
marks denote the Scandinavian Tuisco, Thoth (Mer- 
curius, or Hermes). Fig. 35 is the Indian form of the 
same idea. 

Cy\ The figure marked 36 is to be found on the 
\/j breast of one of the mummies in the museum 
Fig. 35 of the London University. 



SI 



X 




Dp 



1 



V 7 




Fig. 36 
Phallus and Lotus 



Fig. 37 



Fig. 38 



Fig. 39 



Upon a monument discovered in Thebes, Anubis 
is represented as St. Michael and St. George are in 
Christian paintings, armed in a cuirass, and having 
in his hand a lance, with which he pierces a monster 



TERMINAL FIGURES 191 

that has the head and tail of a serpent (A. Lenoir, 
Du Dragon dit Metz, etc. : Memoir es de V 'Academic 
Celtique, tome ii. pp. 11, 12). 

Figure 37 is the ' Labarum \ The celebrated sign 
which is said to have appeared in the sky at noon- 
day to the Emperor Constantine was in this form. 

Figure 38 is the monogram of the Saviour. To 
show the parallel in symbolical forms, we will add 
some further authorities from the Temple of Solomon 
at Jerusalem. 

Figure 39, No. 1, is an evidently Corinthian folia- 
tion. It is from a pillar in the vaults of the Temple 
of Solomon at Jerusalem. (Probably a Lotus- Acan- 
thus.) No. 2 is evidently the ' Crux Ansata \ com- 
bining the indications of ' Lotus ' and ' Lily \ Here 
is a union of the classic, the Judaic, and Gothic forms, 
all presenting the same idea at once. Buddha was 
the sun in ' Taurus ' ; Crist na (Crishna, Krishna) 
was the sun in ' Aries \ 

In regard to the origin of speech, of writing, and 
of letters, it may be remarked that the Egyptians 
referred the employment of a written symbol (to 
record and communicate the spoken word) to a Thoth ; 
the Jews, to Seth or his children (Josephus, Ant. 1, 
2, 3) ; the Greeks, to Hermes. But ' Thout ' in Cop- 
tic (Pezron, Lexicon Linguce Copticce, s.v. Gen. xix. 
26 in the Coptic version), also Jiw in Hebrew, and 
Epiu-w (Hermes) in Greek are all names for a pillar 
or post. This is the Homeric use of ep/ma and ep/uus 
(II. a } 486 ; Od. v } 278 ; Kenrick's Essay on Primeval 
History, p. 119). Apx a is the ship, navis (from thence 
come ' nave ' and ' navel '), in which the germ of 
animated nature was saved. Thebes, or Theba, means 
the ' ark \ Carnac, or Karnak, in Egypt, is reckoned 
to be older than the days of Moses — at least dating 
from 1600 A.C. 



192 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Heraldic Genealogy of the ' Fleur-de-Lis \ or 
' Flower-de-Luce ' 



The opinion of M. Dupuis was (see his learned 
memoir concerning the origin of the constellations), 
that ' Libra ' was formerly the sign of the vernal 
equinox, and ' Aries ' of the nocturnal, autumnal 
equinox ; that is, that since the origin of the actual 
astronomical system, the procession (precession ?) of 
the equinoxes had carried forward by seven signs the 
primitive order of the Zodiac. Now, estimating the 
procession (precession ?) at about 70J years to a de- 
gree, that is, 2115 years to each sign, and observing 
that ' Aries ' was in its fifteenth degree 1447 before 
Christ, it follows that the first degree of ' Libra ' could 
not have coincided with the vernal equinox more 
lately than 15,194 years before Christ, to which, if 
you add 1790 years since Christ, it appears that 16,984 
years have elapsed since the origin of the ' Zodiac ' 
(Volney, Ruins of Empires, 1st English edition, 1792, 
p. 360). 




APOTHEOSIS OF THE SYMBOI 

Fig. 40 
U 



4. Bee 6. Bee 7. Imperial Bee 8. Fleuron 9. Charlemagne 
10. A Babylonian Gem 



EVOLUTION OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS 



All white things express the celestial and luminous 
gods ; all circular ones, the world, the moon, the sun, 
the destinies ; all semicircular ones, as arches and 




Fig. 41 



crescents, are descriptive oi the moon, and of lunar 
deities and meanings* 




11-12. Early French (also Babylonian) 13. Middle French 14. Later 
French 16. Valuis 17. Henry of Navarre 18. In England, thus. 
19. Bourbon 20. Egyptian Sculptures : Fleur-de-Lis ; Asp : Speed 
calls them the ' Flower de Lize.' 

21. Finial : meaning the 'Fleur-de-Lis' 22. Finial 1 



See figs, 190, 191, 192, 195, post. See, also, pages preceding. 

o 



i 9 4 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



1 The Egyptians y , says Porphyry, 1 employ every 
year a talisman in remembrance of the world. At 
the summer solstice, they mark their houses, flocks, 
and trees with red, supposing that on that day the 
whole world had been set on fire. It was also at the 
same period that they celebrated the Pyrrhic or " Fire 
Dance 'V (And this illustrates the origin of the 
purifications by fire and water.) 

There are seven planets in the solar system. These 
seven planets are signified in the seven-branched 
candlestick of the Jewish ritual. The number is a 
sacred number. These seven 1 prophets or angels, 
have each twelve apostles, places, stella, ' stalls \ or 
regions or dominions (stalls as ' stables '), for the 
exercise of their powers. These are the twelve di- 
visions of the great Circle, or the twelve signs of the 
Zodiac. All this is Cabalistic, Magical, Sabaistical, 
and Astrological. The name Ashtaroth or Astarte 
has been derived from Ashre, aster, ast, star, or 
1 starred ' ; in the same way as the word Sephi-roth 
comes from the Hebrew root, ' roth '. 

On the black sacred stone (' Kebla or ' Cabar ') 
at Mecca, ' there appears the figure of a human head 
cut ' which some take to be the head of a Venus ' 
(Enthumius Zyabenus, Mod. Un. Hist. i. 213 ; Sale's 
Discourse, p. 16 ; Bibliotheca Biblia, i. 613, 614). 

Man's ideas, outwards from himself, must always 
become more dreamlike as they recede from him, 
more real as they approach him. 



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND 



MYTH OF THE SCORPION, OR THE SNAKE, IN ITS 
MANY DISGUISES 

One of the Targums says that a serpent, tempted 
Adam, or the first man, and not rrrr, Eve, his wife. 
Here we have the object of adoration of the Ophites 
— the female generative power — the Destroying, Re- 
generating Power among the Ophites, and, indeed, 
the Gnostics generally. The Serpent was called the 
Megalistor, or Great Builder of the Universe (Maia y 
or Bhuddist illusion). Here again we recognize, under 
another name (Ophites), the Cyclopes, or the builders 
of the circular Temples at Stonehenge and every- 
where else. Mr. Payne Knight has repeated an obser- 
vation of Stukeley, that ' the original name of the 
temple at Abury was the " Snake's Head 'V And 
he adds, ' It is remarkable that the remains of a 
similar circle of stones (circular temple) in Bceotia 
had the same name in the time of Pausanias ' (Pau- 
sanias, Bczot. cap. xix. s. 2). 

The famous oracular stone, enclosed in the seat of 
St. Edward's chair (the Coronation Chair) in West- 
minster Abbey, was at one time a stone to which 
adoration was paid. It was possessed of imagined 
miraculous gifts. This stone is asserted to be the 
same which the Patriarch rested his head upon in 
the Plain of ' Luza and is said to have been carr- 
ied first to Brigantia, a city of Gallicia, in Spain. 
From thence it was brought into Ireland by Simon 
Brech, the first King of the Scots, about 700 years 

195 



196 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



before Christ ; and from there,' about 370 years after, 
into Scotland, by King Fergaze (Fergus). In the 
3 T ear of Christ 850 it was placed at the Abbey of Scone 
(in the county of Perth) by King Kenneth ; this 
being the place where the Scottish Kings were gener- 
ally crowned in those days. In the year 1297 this 
Scottish wooden throne or chair, together with their 
crown and sceptre, was brought into England by the 
English King Edward the First, and placed in West- 
minster Abbey. 

Si quid habent veri vel chronica, can a fides ve, 
Clauditur hac Cathedra nobilius ecce lapis, 
Ad caput eximius Jacob quondam Patriarcha 
Quern posuit, cernens numina mirapoli. 
Quern tulit ex Scotis, spolians quasi victor honoris, 
Edwardus Primus, Mars velut armipotens ; 
Scotorum Domitor, noster Validissimus Hector, 
Anglorum Decus & gloria militias. 

Antiquities of Westminster Abbey, 17 ti. 

It is still supposed, in accordance with the ancient 
prophecies, that the stone in the Coronation Chair 
has miraculous gifts, and that the sovereignty of 
England depends upon it. This magical stone carries 
with it the tradition (how or whence derived no one 
knows), that it murmurs approval at the coronation 
when the rightful heir assumes his or her seat on it ; 
but that, on the contrary, it would clap with terrific 
noise, and fire flash from it, implying protest and 
denunciation, should an usurper attempt to counter- 
work or control its mysteries. It still has hooks for 
the chain which in former unknown ' times suspended 
it, when it was borne as a talisman of victory at the 
head of the army — when doubtless it was regarded as 
a Palladium of Prosperity, and a Divinity. It is also 
said that the pre-eminence of London is connected 
with the preservation of London Stone. ^ ; 



THE CORONATION STONE 



197 



Both the ancient relic, London Stone, and the 
Coronation Stone in Westminster Abbey, seem of the 
same character. They appear to have been either 
worn down to their present smallness in the lapse 
of the ages, or to have been mutilated at some un- 
known, remote period — possibly thrown down and 
broken as objects of superstitious reverence, if not 
of direct and positive idolatry, thus very probably 
exciting indignation, which, as it found opportunity 
and scope for its exercise, was successful in their de- 
molition. In both these stones we certainly have 
only fragments — perhaps of Obelisks, or of Jewish 
4 Bethel ' Pillars or ' Stones ' — for all these supposed 
magical stones are of the same sacred family. 

The supposed magical stone, enclosed in the wooden 
block at the base of the Coronation Chair, has been 
reputed, from time immemorial, to murmur its ap- 
proval or disapproval of the royal occupant, only at 
the moment when the Sovereign was placed in the 
chair for investiture with the sacred pallium or with 
the state robes, on the occasion of the King's or the 
Oueen's coronation. 

In this respect the stone is very similar in its ascribed 
supernatural gifts, and in this special oracular speak- 
ing-power, to all sacred or magical stones ; and more 
particularly to the famous statue of Memnon in Egypt, 
which is said to give forth a long, melodious tone 
with the first ray of sunrise, like that produced by 
the wind through the iEolian harp. It is not quite 
clear whether this sound is expected to issue from 
the stone in the royal chair at Westminster when ap- 
proval is intended, and the meaning ol the stone is 
benign, or whether sounds at all are to be heard only 
when displeasure is to be expressed. This strange 
asserted power of the sacred stone at Westminster 
to become vocal directly allies it with other oracular 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



stones all over the world. The prevalence every- 
where, and in all time, of the existence of special 
stones having this miraculous gift is a striking and 
curious proof of the continual, invincible yearning 
of man for supernatural direct help and direction 
from powers exterior and invisible to him. He ear- 
nestly desires the possibility of personal communi- 
cation with that intelligent, unseen world, which he 
cannot avoid thinking is close about him, surveying 
his doings. Man tries to overcome the assurance 
that this invisible, recognitive, responsive world, to 
betake himself to in his time of trouble, is, so far 
as his senses insist, so hopelessly out of reach. He 
languishes to think it attainable. 

The oracular stone at Westminster seems only a 
piece of some pillar or lithos : but no one will attempt 
to dispute that it is an object of prodigious antiquity, 
and that its history is very remarkable and interest- 
ing. Its place of deposit, too, the shrine of Edward 
the Confessor, is worthy of it ; and both inspire deep 
reverence — nay, an awful feeling. 



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD 



OMINOUS CHARACTER OF THE COLOUR ' WHITE ' TO 
ENGLISH ROYALTY 

We beg to premise that the following fears are not 
our belief, but that they are educed from old traditions 
— old as England. 

It is a very ancient idea, derived from the highest 
antiquity, that the colour ' white ' — which, considered 
in the mystic and occult sense, is feminine in its origin 
—is fateful in its effects sometimes ; and that, as a 
particular instance of its unfortunate character, it 
is an unlucky colour for the royal house of England 
— at all events, for the king or queen of England per- 
sonally — singular as the notion would appear to be. 
We are not aware whether this sinister effect of the 
ominous colour white is supposed to extend to the 
nation generally. It is limited, we believe, to the 
prince or sovereign of England, and to his immed- 
iate belongings. The name John, which comes 
from Iona ) a remote feminine root, has also been 
reckoned unfortunate for the king's name both in 
England and in France. The reason of this does not 
appear to be anywhere stated. The origin of the 
prophecy, also, as to the formidable character of the 
colour white to England, is unknown ; but it is imag- 
ined to be at least as old as the time of Merlin. Thomas 
de Quincey, who takes notice of the prophecy of the 
' White King says of King Charles the First, that 
the foreboding of the misfortunes of this ' White 
King ' were supposed to have been fulfilled in his 

199 



200 



H£E ROSICRUCIANS 



instance, because he was by accident clothed in whitt 
at his coronation ; it being remembered afterwards 
that white was the ancient colour for a victim. This, 
in itself, was sufficiently formidable as an omen. De 
Ouincey's particular expressions are ; ' That when 
King Charles the First came to be crowned, it was 
found that, by some oversight, all the store in Lon- 
don was insufficient to furnish the purple velvet 
necessary for the robes of the king and for the fur- 
niture of the throne. It was too late to send to Genoa 
for a supply ; and through this accidental deficiency 
it happened that the king was attired in white velvet 
at the solemnity of his coronation, and not in red or 
purple robes, as consisted with the proper usage/ 

As an earlier instance of this singular superstition, 
the story of that ill-fated royal White Ship occurs 
to memory, as the vessel was called wherein Prince 
William, the son of King Henry the First, the heir- 
apparent, with his natural sister, the Countess of 
Perche, and a large company of the young nobility, 
embarked on their return to England from Normandy. 
It might be supposed that the misfortunes of King 
Charles the First, which were accepted, at that time 
of monarchical dismay, as the reading (and the ex- 
haustion) of this evil-boding prophecy, were enough ; 
but there are some reasons for imagining that the 
effects are not — even in our day — altogether expended. 
The fatalities of the colour ' white ' to English royalty 
certainly found their , consummation, or seemed so to 
do, in the execution of King Charles the First, who 
was brought out to suffer before his own palace of 
' Whitehall 1 — where, again, we find ' white ' intro- 
duced in connexion with royalty and tragical events. 
Whitehall is the Royal ' White ' Palace of England. 
The ' White Rose ' was the unfortunate rose (and 
the conquered one) of the contending two Roses in 



WHITE A MAGIC COLOUR 



207 



this country. This is again a singular fact, little as 
it has been remarked. We will pursue this strange 
inquiry just a little further, and see if the lights of 
Rosicrucianism will not afford us a measure of help ; 
for it is one of the doctrines of the Rosicrucians that 
the signatures, as they call them, of objects have a 
magical marking-up and a preternatural effect, through 
hidden spiritual reasons, of which we have no idea 
in this mortal state — in other words, that magic and 
charming, through talismans, is possible ; common 
sense being not all sense. 

The colour white is esteemed both of good and of 
bad augury, according to the circumstances and the 
periods of its presentation. In relation to the name 
of our present King, the supposedly unfortunate pre- 
fix ' Albert ' has been practically discarded in favour 
of ' Edward ' only. This name of Edward is an his- 
torical, triumphant, and auspicious name \ for all 
our Edwards, except the weak King Edward the 
Second, have been powerful or noteworthy men. 
Now, very few people have had occasion to remark, 
or have recalled the fact as significant and ominous 
in the way we mean, that the word ' Albert ' itself 
means 'White'. The root of 'Albert' is, in most 
languages, to be found in ■ white ' : alb us } white ; 
a!p } white ; Albania, the ' white ' country. We here 
recall the 1 snowy camese ', to which Byron makes 
reference as worn in Albania. ' Albion ' (of the 
'white' cliffs), Alb, Al, El, /El, all mean 'white'. 
Examples might be multiplied. Ak(j>os } a\ire y albus, 
' white are derived from the Celtic alp ; and from 
thence came the word ' Alps ', which are mountains 
always white, as being covered with snow. ' Alius 3 
" white certainly comes from the Celtic alp } or 
alb ' says the historian Pezron ; ' for in that language, 
as well as in many others, the b and the p frequently 



202 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



interchange ; from whence the ancient Latins, and 
the Sabines themselves, said Alpus for white. I con- 
sider it therefore as certain continues Pezron, ' that 
from Alpus the word Alps came, because the moun- 
tains are always white, as being covered with snow ; 
the words " Alp " or " Alb and their compounds, 
meaning white everywhere. I conclude, also, that 
from the Pen of the Celtae, Umbrians, and Sabines, 
which signifies a " head " top or " high place 
they made Penninus Mons, the Apennines, vast moun- 
tains in Italy. Thus these celebrated words pro- 
ceed certainly from the Gaulish tongue, and are older 
by several ages than the city of Rome/ The follow- 
ing are all Teutonic or German words : alb, alf (Qy. 
Alfred ?), and alp, which all signify ' white ' as their 
original root. Thus much for white. 

White is also a colour not auspicious to the Prus- 
sian royal family, although, again, in a contradictory 
way, the ensigns of Prussia (Borussia, or * of the 
Borussi ') are, as armorists well know, the original 
' white and black ' of the Egyptians, which were 
adopted by the Teutons and the Templars. These 
white and black tinctures are heraldically argent and 
sable : Luna, or pearl, for * tears ' ; Saturn, or dia- 
mond, for ' sadness, penance, and ashes \ In these 
strange senses, the Rosicrucians accepted colours as 
in themselves talismanic, powerfully operative through 
their planetary ' efficients \ or ' signatures as the 
astrologers call them. These ideas, more or less pro- 
nounced, have prevailed in all ages and in all coun- 
tries, and they lurk largely in suspicion through our 
own land. We are all aware, in England, of the 
objection to the colour ' green ' in certain cases. It 
is the spirit-colour, a magic colour, the colour of the 
' fairies ', as the cabalistic, tutelary, miniature spirits 
are called, who are supposed to be very jealous of 



THE IRISH HARP 



203 



its use. In Ireland, green is universally regarded 
with distrust ; but with veneration, in the spiritual 
sense. It is the national colour ; for the Patroness 
of Ireland is the female deity, the Mother of Nature, 
known in the classic mythology as Venus — equally 
Venus the graceful and Venus the terrible, as the 
Goddess of Life and of Death. The various verts, 
or greens, are the ' colour-rulers ' in the emblazonry 
of the Emerald Isle. The presiding deity of the 
Land of Ierna, or of Ireland, is the mythic 1 Woman ', 
born out of the fecundity of nature, or out of the 
' Great Deep \ This is the genius (with certain sin- 
ister, terrible aspects, marked out grandly in the old 
forms) who is ' impaled ' or ' crucified ' — in its real, 
hidden meaning — upon the stock, or ' Tree of Life ', 
indicated by the Irish Harp. Her hair, in the moment 
of agony, streams Daphne-like, as ' when about to 
be transformed into the tree behind her in the wind, 
and twines, in the mortal, mythical stress, into the 
seven strings of the magic Irish Harp, whose music 
is the music of the spheres, or of the Rosicrucian, 
assumed penitential, visible world. These seven 
strings stand for the seven vowels, by means of which 
came speech to man, when the ' new being ', man 
(this is cabalistic again, and therefore difficult of 
comprehension), ' opened his mouth and spake \ 
The seven strings of the Irish Harp, it will be remem- 
bered, are blazoned ' Luna ', or the ' Moon ' — the 
feminine moon — according to the practice of the old 
heralds, in regard to all royal or ruling achievements, 
which are blazoned by the names of the planets. The 
seven strings of the Irish Harp mean also the seven 
pure tones in music ; these, again, stand for the 
seven prismatic colours ; which, again, describe the 
seven vowels ; and these, again, represent their seven 
rulers, or the seven planets, which have their seven 



204 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



spirits, or ' Celestial Flames which are the seven 
Angels or Spirits of God, who keep the way round 
about 1 the Throne of the Ancient of Days \ 

There is in most countries an objection to Friday 
although it is the Mohammedan sacred day or Sab- 
bath. Friday is the day of the ' Green \ Emeralds, 
or smaragds, are proper to be worn on Friday, and 
bring good fortune, as exercising occult influences 
on this particular day. 

The breastplate of the Jewish High-Priest had its 
oracular gems, which were the Urim and Thummim. 
The reputed enchanter, Apollonius Tyaneus, is said, 
for the purposes of his magic, to have worn special 
rings, with their appropriate gems, for each day of 
the sevenfold week, to command the particular spirits 
belonging to the different days. The Hermetic Breth- 
ren had certain rules that they observed in relat- 
ion to this view of the power of precious stones to 
bring good or bad fortune through the planetary 
affinities of certain days, because they imagined that 
the various gems, equally as gold and silver, were 
produced through the chemic operation of the planets, 
working secretly in the telluric body. The}' thought 
that gold and silver, and all the gems, had but one 
foundation in nature, and were simply augmented, 
purified, and perfected through the operation of the 
hermetic or magnetic light — invisible and unattain- 
able under ordinary circumstances, and unknown, 
except to the alchemists. All yellow gems, and gold, 
are appropriate to be worn on Sunday, to draw down 
the propitious influences, or to avert the antagonistic 
effects, of the spirits on this day, through its ruler 
and name-giver, the Sun. On Monday, pearls and 
white stones (but not diamonds) are to be worn, be- 
cause this is the day of the Moon, or of the second 
power in nature. Tuesday, which is the day of Mars, 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DAYS 



205 



claims rubies, and all stones of a fiery lustre. Wed- 
nesday is the day for turquoises, sapphires, and all 
precious stones which seem to reflect the blue of the 
vault of heaven, and that imply the lucent azure 
of the supposed spiritual atmosphere, wherein, or 
under which, the Rosicrucian sylphs dwell — those 
elementary children who, according to the cabalistic 
theogony, are always striving for intercourse with 
the race of Adam, seeking a share of his particular 
privilege of immortality, which has been denied to 
them. Thursday demands amethysts and deep- 
coloured stones of sanguine tint, because Thursday 
is the day of Thor — the Runic impersonated Male 
Divine Sacrifice. Friday, which is the day of Venus, 
has its appropriate emeralds, and reigns over all the 
varieties of the imperial, and yet strangely the sinis- 
ter, colour green. Saturday, which is Saturn's day, 
the oldest of the gods, claims for its distinctive talis- 
man the most splendid of all gems, or the queen of 
precious stones, the lustre-darting diamond, which is 
produced from the black of Sab, Seb, or Saturn, the 
origin of all visible things, or the ' Great Deep or 
' Great Mother', in one sense. 

This is the day on which all green gems, and the 
colour green, should be universally used. Friday is 
the ' woman's day ' of the sevenfold weekly period ; 
and therefore, as some ill-natured people might say, 
it is the unlucky day. Certain it is, however, that 
although it presents the exact contradiction of being 
especially the woman's day, few or no marriages 
would be celebrated on this day, as popularly bearing 
the mark of ill luck, which suppositions few would 
like openly to defy, or, according to the familiar ex- 
pression, ' fly in the face of \ May is also forbidden 
for marriages, although it is the 'woman's month', 
or month in which 1 May-day ' occurs, and in which 



206 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



' May-poles ' used to be set up everywhere. (See 
figures of May-poles later in our book.) 

But to return to the ill-omened colour to England, 
white, and to the important shape in which we find 
it to appear in the name borne by our present King — 
' Albert Edward ; ' inheriting his name ' Albert ' 
from perhaps the most lovable prince whom this 
country has ever known as casting in his destinies, 
by marriage, with it, but whose end — in the prime 
of life, and in the fullness of his influence — was surely 
unfortunate enough, when the eyes of hope of all 
Europe, in various respects, were fixed upon him ! 
The name ' Albert ' has happily, however, been passed 
over in the person of the King as a name laid aside ; 
and he is known by the name — the propitious name 
— of Edward only, ' Edward the Seventh ' . 

The ' White Lady of Berlin ' and her mysterious 
appearances from time to time are well known to 
the writers of modern romantic biographical story. 
Whom she is supposed to represent seems to be un- 
known to all. Those who have recorded her fitful 
revelations of herself venture no surmise ; but she is 
considered in some way the evil genius of the Hohen- 
zollern family, much in the same manner as the un- 
accounted-for figure might have been regarded who 
revealed himself to Brutus on the Plains of Philippi, 
and who announced the crowning misfortunes of the 
next day. The Irish have a name for this super- 
natural appearance in the * banshee or the speaker,, 
or exponent, of fate. The ' White Lady of Berlin ' 
is supposed to be seen by some person in the palace 
before any pre-eminent disaster supervenes, occurring 
to a member of the royal house. The glimpses of 
this White Lady are only momentary and delusive 
—so vague, indeed, as to be readily contradicted or 
explained away (perhaps willingly) even by the sup- 



WHITE A FATEFUL COLOUR 207 



posed seers themselves. It is also a fact not a little 
curious, when we come to consider it by the side- 
glance, as it were, that the colour white (the English 
unfortunate colour), besides being that of the ' White 
Rose ' and of ' Whitehall is that white of the unlucky 
Stuarts, whose history through centuries, both in 
Scotland and in England, was but one long catalogue 
of mishaps, woes, and disasters. Prmce Charles Ed- 
ward and his famous ' white cockade and the evil 
fortunes of all his followers and of the Jacobite cause 
in general in 1715 and 1745, emblemed in the virgin, 
holy colour white, supply a touching, nay tragical, 
page in public and in private history. Lastly, we 
may adduce as a supposed exemplification of the 
terrible general effects of this evil-boding name albus, 
and colour white, in France, the history of all the 
Bourbons, whose colour is white in particular, from 
the first of that name who displayed his snowy ban- 
ner, and who fell by the dagger of an assassin, to 
the last Bourbon in modern history, whose fate we 
will not attempt to forecast, nor in any manner to 
seem to bespeak. Merlin, whose prophecy of the 
dangers, at some time, of ' white ' to the kingdom 
of England was supposed to refer to the invasion of 
this country by the pale Saxons, whose device or 
token was the ' white horse until further associat- 
ions of white and misfortune in England came to 
dispel the idea, may even still have his original pro- 
phetic forecast unfulfilled. The colour white, or some 
strange, at present unimagined, association of ' white 
may yet lie, like a dream, perdu in the future (of the 
chances of which no man can speak), to justify Merlin 
at once, and to astonish and bewilder, by the long- 
delayed evolvement of the centuries in which at last 
the realization and the misfortune become simul- 
taneously apparent : for which, and for the possi- 



208 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



bilities of which, we will terminate in the adjuration 
of the sublime Romans, those masters in the art of 
augury and of divination, ' Absit omen ! ' But thus 
much we have chosen to explain about the colour 
white, in justification of the ideas of the Rosicrucians 
as to the supernatural power of colours ; and as to 
the magical qualities of those occult influences which 
they determined, in their philosophical vocabularies, 
strangely and mysteriously to call the ' signatures 
of things \ 



I. 2.. 3. 4. 5. 




8.CJ, io 11. 12, 



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH 



THE BELIEFS OF THE ROSICRUCIANS— MEANING OF 
LIGHTS AND OF COMMEMORATIVE FLAMBEAUX IN 
ALL WORSHIP 

From the name of the Temple, now Stonehenge, comes 
the name of Ambresbury, which stands a few miles 
from it. This is called the ' Ambres of the Abiri \ 
It is two words, and means the ' Ambres of the Dii 
Potentes or of the n^N, or ' Cabiri ' — for they are 
the same. 

The star of the Legion d'Honneur bears the inscrip- 
tion • Napoleon , Empereur des Frangais \ This order 
was instituted by the Emperor Napoleon the First, 
after the discovery and dissolution of the Secret 
Society, or Brotherhood, of which General Pichegru, 
Georges Cadoudal, the famous Moreau, and other 
noted revolutionary men were members. 1 This order 
possessed, it is stated, a talisman or mystic head, 
which served as a recognitive mark, and was supposed 
to be a sort of bond to the brotherhood. After their 
death, their secret insignia were discovered ; and it 
has been stated that the Emperor Napoleon, whose 
attention was instantaneously arrested by great and 
unusual ideas or supernatural suggestions, in sup- 
pressing this mystic symbol or head, adopted it in 
another form, and substituted his own head in profile, 
as the palladium , or talisman, for his new order of 
the 'Legion of Honour \ 

The saffron robe of Hymen is of the colour of the 

... . . . . v 2f)9 



210 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



Flame of Fire. The Bride, in ancient days, was covered 
with a veil called the ' Flammettm 1 ; unless made 
under this, no vow was considered sacred. The 
ancients swore, not by the altar, but by the flame of 
fire which was upon the altar. Yellow, or flame-colour, 
was the colour of the Ghebers, or Guebres, or Fire- 
Worshippers. The Persian lilies are yellow ; and 
here will be remarked a connexion between this fact 
of the yellow of the Persian lilies and the mystic 
symbols in various parts of our book. Mystic rites, 
and the symbolical lights, which mean the Divinity 
of Fire, abound at Candlemas-day (February 2nd), or 
the Feast of the Purification ; in the torches borne 
at weddings, and in the typical flame-brandishing at 
marriage over almost all the world ; in the illumin- 
ations at feasts ; in the lights on, and set about, the 
Christian altar ; at the festival of the Holy Nativity ; in 
the ceremonies at preliminary espousals ; in the Bale, or 
Baal, fires on the summits of the mountains ; in the 
watch-lights, or votive sanctuary-lights, in the hermit- 
age in the lowest valley ; in the chapelle ardente } 
in the Romish funereal observances, with its abun- 
dance of silent, touching lights around the splendid 
catafalque, or twinkling, pale and ineffectual, singly 
at the side of the death-bed in the cottage of the 
peasant. Starry lights and innumerable torches at 
the stately funeral, or at any pompous celebration, 
mean the same. In short, light all over the world, 
when applied to religious rites, and to ceremonial, 
whether in the ancient or in the modern times, bespeaks 
the same origin, and struggles to express the same 
meaning, which is Parseeism, Perseism, or the wor- 
ship of the deified Fire, disguised in many theological 
or theosophic forms. It will, we trust, never be 
supposed that we mean, in this, real fire, but only the 
inexpressible something of which real fire, or rather 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS 



211 



its flower or glory (bright light), is the farthest off — 
because, in being visible at all, it is the grossest and 
most inadequate image. 

All this strange, dreamy, ethereal view of a vital, 
accessible something, entirely separate from the sug- 
gestions of mere sensation, is Gnosticism, or Bhuddism, 
in its own profoundest depth. It follows on similarly 
to the ' intoxication,' or suffusion with the very 
certainty of the presence of God, which, in the poetic 
sense, was said to fill the mind of even the supposed 
arch-atheist Spinoza. 

The Rosicrucians, through the revelations concern- 
ing them of their celebrated English representative, 
Robertus de Fluctibus, or Robert Fludd, declare, in 
accordance with the Mosaic account of creation — 
which, they maintain, is in no instance to be taken 
literally, but metaphorically — that two original prin- 
ciples, in the beginning, proceeded from the Divine 
Father. These are Light and Darkness, or form or 
idea, and matter or plasticity. Matter, downwards, 
becomes fivefold, as it works in its forms, according 
to the various operations of the first informing light ; 
it extends four-square, according to the points of 
the celestial compass, with the divine creative -efflu- 
ence in the centre. The worlds spiritual and temporal, 
being rendered subject to the operation of the original 
Type, or Idea, became, in their imitation of this Invis- 
ible Ideal, first intelligible, and then endowed with 
reciprocal meaning outwards from themselves. This 
produced the being (or thought) to whom, or to which, 
creation was disclosed. This is properly the 1 Son 
or Second Ineffable Person of the Divine Trinity. 
Thus that which we understand as a 1 human mind ' 
became a possibility. This second great, only intellig- 
ible world, the Rosicrucians call ' Macrocosmos \ 
They distribute it as into three regions or spheres ; 



212 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



which, as they lie near to, or dilate the farthest from, 
the earliest opening divine ' Brightness they deno- 
minate the Empyraeum, the iEtheraeum, and the 
Elementary Region, each filled and determinate and 
forceful with less and less of the First Celestial Fire. 
These regions contain innumerable invisible nations, 
or angels, of a nature appropriate to each. Through 
these immortal regions, Light, diffusing in the eman- 
ations of the cabalistic Sephiroth, becomes the black- 
ness, sediment, or ashes, which is the second fiery, 
real world. This power, or vigour, uniting with the 
Ethereal Spirit, constitutes strictly the 1 Soul of the 
World \ It becomes the only means of the earthly 
intelligence, or man, knowing it. It is the Angel- 
Conqueror, Guide, Saviour born of ' Woman', or 
1 Great Deep the Gnostic Sophia, the ' Word made 
flesh ' of St. John. The Empyraeum is properly the 
flower, or glory (effluent in its abundance), of the 
divine Latent Fire. It is penetrated with miracle 
and holy magic. The Rosicrucian system teaches 
that there are three ascending hierarchies of bene- 
ficent Angels (the purer portion of the First Fire, or 
Light), divided into nine orders. These threefold 
angelic hierarchies are the Teraphim, the Seraphim, 
and the . Cherubim. This religion, which is the 
religion of the Parsees, teaches that, on the Dark Side, 
there are also three counter-balancing resultant divis- 
ions of operative intelligences, divided again into 
nine spheres, or inimical regions, populated with 
splendidly endowed adverse angels, who boast still 
the relics of their lost, or eclipsed, or changed, light. 
The elementary world, or lowest world, in which man 
and his belongings, and the lower creatures, are pro- 
duced, is the flux, subsidence, residuum, ashes, or 
deposit, of the Ethereal Fire. Man is the microcosm, 
or ' indescribably small copy \ of the whole great 



ROSI CRUCIAN TEACHING 



213 



world. Dilatation and compression, expansion and 
contraction, magnetic sympathy, gravitation to, or 
flight from, is the bond which holds all imaginable 
things together. The connexion is intimate be- 
tween the higher and the lower, because all is a per- 
petual aspiration, or continuous descent : one long, 
immortal chain, whose sequence is never-ending, reaches 
by impact with that immediately above, and by con- 
tact with that immediately below, from the very 
lowest to the very highest. ' So true is it that God 
loves to retire into His clouded Throne ; and, thicken- 
ing the Darkness that encompasses His most awful 
Majesty, He inhabits an Inaccessible Light, and lets 
none into His Truths but the poor in spirit/ The 
Rosicrucians contended that these so ' poor in spirit ' 
meant themselves, and implied their submission and 
abasement before God. 

The Rosicrucians held that, all things visible and 
invisible having been produced by the contention of 
light with darkness, the earth has denseness in its 
innumerable heavy concomitants downwards, and they 
contain less and less of the original divine light as they 
thicken and solidify the grosser and heavier in matter. 
They taught, nevertheless, that every object, how- 
ever stifled or delayed in its operation, and darkened 
and thickened in the solid blackness at the base, yet 
contains a certain possible deposit, or jewel, of light 
— which light, although by natural process it may 
take ages to evolve, as light will tend at last by its 
own native, irresistible force upward (when it has 
opportunity), can be liberated ; that dead matter 
will yield this spirit in a space more or less expeditious 
by the art of the alchemist. There are worlds within 
worlds — we, human organisms, only living in a deceiv- 
ing, or Bhuddistic, - dreamlike phase ' of the grand 
panorama. Unseen and unsuspected (because in it 



214 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



lies magic), there is an inner magnetism, or divine 
aura, or ethereal spirit, or possible eager fire, shut and 
confined, as in a prison, in the body, or in all sensible 
solid objects, which have more or less of spiritually 
sensitive life as they can more successfully free them- 
selves from this ponderable, material obstruction. 
Thus all minerals, in this spark of light, have the 
rudimentary possibility of plants and growing organ- 
isms ; thus all plants have rudimentary sensitives, 
which might (in the ages) enable them to perfect and 
transmute into locomotive new creatures, lesser or 
higher in their grade, or nobler or meaner in their 
functions ; thus all plants and all vegetation might 
pass off (by side-roads) into more distinguished high- 
ways, as it were, of independent, completer advance, 
allowing their original spark of light to expand and 
thrill with higher and more vivid force, and to urge 
forward with more abounding, informed purpose — 
all wrought by planetary influence, directed by the 
unseen spirits (or workers) of the Great Original 
Architect, building His microcosmos of a world from 
the plans and powers evoked in the macrocosm, or 
heaven of first forms, which, in their multitude and 
magnificence, are as changeable shadows cast off from 
the Central Immortal First Light, whose rays dart 
from the centre to the extremest point of the universal 
circumference. It is with terrestrial fire that the 
alchemist breaks or sunders the material darkness 
or atomic thickness, all visible nature yielding to his 
furnaces, whose scattering heat (without its sparks) 
breaks all doors of this world's kind. It is with im- 
material fire (or ghostly fire) that the Rosicrucian 
loosens contraction and error, and conquers the false 
knowledge and the deceiving senses which bind the 
human soul as in its prison. On this side of his powers, 
on this dark side (to the world) of his character, the 



THE THEORY OF ALCHEMY 



215 



alchemist (rather now become the Rosicrucian) works 
in invisible light, and is a magician. He lays the 
bridge (as the Pontifex or Bridge-Maker) between 
the world possible and the world impossible : and 
across this bridge, in his Immortal Heroism and 
Newness, he leads the votary out of his dream of life 
into his dream of temporary death, or into extinction 
of the senses and of the powers of the senses ; which 
world's blindness is the only true and veritable life, 
the envelope of flesh falling metaphorically off the 
now liberated glorious entity — taken up, in charms, 
by the invisible fire into rhapsody, which is as the 
gate of heaven. 

Now a few words as to the theory of alchemy. The 
alchemists boasted of the power, after the elimination 
and dispersion of the ultimate elements of bodies by 
fire (represented by the absent difference of their 
weights before and after their dissolution), to recover 
them back out of that exterior, unknown world sur- 
rounding this world : which world men reason against 
as if it had no existence, when it has real existence ; 
and in which they were in ignorance in their ' Pre- 
State \ as they will be (perhaps also in ignorance) in 
their 'After-State'. In respect of which state ('be- 
fore ' and ' after ' this life), all people, in all time, have 
had an idea. It is ' Purgatory \ it is ' Limbus ', it 
is ' Suspension in Repose ', it is as the 1 Twilight ' of 
the Soul before and after the ' Day ' of Full Life, or 
complete consciousness. These ideas are as equally 
Christian as Pagan. How little is all this supposed 
in the ignorance of the moderns ! 

It is this other world (just off this real world) into 
which the Rosicrucians say they can enter, and bring 
back, as proofs that they have been there, the old 
things (thought escaped), metamorphosed into new 
things. This act is transmutation. This product is 



216 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



magic gold, or ' fairy gold \ condensed as real gold. 
This growing gold, or self-generating and multiplying 
gold, is obtained by invisible transmutation (and in 
other light) in another world out of this world ; 
immaterial to us creatures of limited faculties, but 
material enough, farther on, on the heavenly side, or on 
the side opposite to our human side. In other words, 
the Rosicrucians claim not to be bound by the limits 
of the present world, but to be able to pass into this 
next world (inaccessible only in appearance), and to 
be able to work in it, and to come back safe (and self- 
same) out of it, bringing their trophies with them, 
which were gold, obtained out of this master-circle, 
or outside elementary circle, different from ordinary 
life, though enclosing it ; and the elixir vitce, or the 
means of the renewal or the perpetuation of human 
life through this universal, immortal medicine, or 
magisterium, which, being a portion of the light out- 
side, or magic, or breath of the spirits, fleeing from 
man, and only to be won in the audacity of God- 
aided alchemic exploration, was independent of those 
mastered natural elements, or nutritions, necessary 
to ordinary common life. The daily necessary food 
which is taken for the sustenance of the body was, 
as the Rosicrucians contended, the means of dissolut- 
ion, or death daily passing through and the real 
cause of the destruction of the body, by the slowest 
of all processes, but yet, in instalments, the effectual 
one. They asserted that man dies daily in his own 
native bodily corruptions. These singular philos- 
ophers ventured the assertion that God did not, in 
the beginning, intend that man's life should be termin- 
ated by diseases, nor that he should be made subject 
to accidental, violent means of end. In the abstract 
sense, and apart from our knowledge of man as man, 
the Rosicrucians contended that diseases are not 



ORIGINAL SIN 



21; 



necessarily incidental to the body, and that death 
may be said to have become an imported accident 
into the scheme of things ; our ideas being erroneous 
as to the original design in regard of us. 

Man was to have lived as the angels, of an impreg- 
nable, impassable vitality, taking his respiration, not 
by short snatches, as it were, but as out of the great 
cup of the centuries. He was to be the spectator of 
nature — not nature his spectator. The real objects 
of the adepts were, in truth, to remain no longer slaves 
to those things supposed to be necessities, but, by the 
assistance of Heaven, to remove back to Heaven's 
original intention ; to rise superior to the conse- 
quences of the original Curse, and to tread under foot, 
in vindicating the purpose of God, that mortal (how- 
ever seductive), sexual, distinctive, degradation entail- 
ing dissolution, heired from Adam, or from the First 
Transgressor. That poverty and celibacy (under 
certain limitations) must be the obligations of the 
true Brothers of the ' R. C will at once be seen from 
the above reasons, however wild and mistaken — 
barely even comprehensible. This is the real origin- 
al reason for the monastic state — defying and deny- 
ing nature. 

The original curse was entailed upon mankind by 
eating of 

The fruit 

Of that forbidden ' Tree whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe. 

What that ' Tree ' was, and what are its votive, 
idolatrous (in the bad sense) symbols in the old world 
and in the new, we think we have abundantly shown 
— at least, in the occult, shadowy idea. Why, sup- 
posing that the alchemists ever possessed the power 
of universal gold-making, the}' fail of producing any, 



218 



THE ROSICRUCIAMS 



or of offering one of their rich gifts to the world, is 
at once answered in these two conclusive, obvious 
facts : Firstly, that if this power of gold-making, 
or of transmutation, were a recognized possibility, like 
any other art allowed or authorized, it would inevit- 
ably become penal or impossible, in order to preserve 
the existing value of gold, the richest metal ; and 
the professor of the art would be at once put out of 
sight. Secondly, if supposed to be true, and not fable, 
like any ordinary art or science, the man who had 
arrived at such a stupendous secret would be sacri- 
ficed or martyred in the insatiate haste of the people 
to compel him to produce gold, in order to satisfy 
them — that gold, moreover, which will destroy, but 
can never satisfy. ' Ye cannot serve God and Mam- 
mon.' These things the alchemists too well know, 
and therefore they (if any exist now) hide, as they 
have always hidden, and deny, as they have always 
denied ; being desirous of stealing through the world 
unknown and of serving God alone, whose inaccessible 
great glory, as we see, has been imitated in the golden 
lights of the inexpressibly grand (in the worldly and 
mortal sense), apostate constructions of the magnifi- 
cent Mammon, Lord of the Treasures of this World, 
for which men offer themselves willing victims even 
to Him, King of the Visible, whose semblance is that 
of the most brilliant yellow element — Fire — Or, 1 Golden 
Flame the ' Flower ' of the Fire. 

The alchemists maintain that the metals are pro- 
duced in the secret operations of the planets, that 
grow them daily in the bowels of the earth ; that 
the sun and moon, red and white, fire and water, light 
and darkness, male and female, night and day, are 
active in the generation of the precious metals, of 
which gold is due wholly to the invisible operation 
of the sun and moon, and silver is referable to the 



THE BIRTH OF GOLD 



219 



whitening or bleaching lucidity of the moon ; that 
gold is produced quicker or slower according to the 
faster or slower operations of nature ; that it vivifies 
and vegetates, bears bright seed and multiplies, ger- 
minating as fructifying in the matrix, or the laborat- 
ories of the earth ; that gold is produced with infinite 
pains, as it were, by these chemic operations of nature, 
very slowly under certain circumstances, but very 
rapidly under other more favourable, more powerful 
conditions ; that it is possible for the adept to act 
as the midwife of nature, and to assist in her deliver- 
ance, and in the birth of gold, in these occult senses ; 
that the work of nature being thus expedited by this 
alchemical art, the hitherto thwarted intention of 
Providence is effected in the predetermined liberation 
of the divine gold, ' Lux or light, which is again 
united to its radix or producing-point, in heaven. A 
spark of the original light is supposed by the Rosi- 
crucians to remain deep down in the interior of every 
atom. 

The Rosicrucian Cabala teaches that the three 
great worlds above — Empyraeum, iEtheraeum, and the 
Elementary Region — have their copies in the three 
points of the body of man : that his head answers 
to the first ; his breast, or heart, to the second ; and 
his ventral region to the third. In the head rests the 
intellect, or the magnetism of the assenting judg- 
ment, which is a phenomenon ; in his heart is the 
conscience, or the emotional faculty, or the Saviour ; 
and in the umbilical centre reside the animal faculties, 
or all the sensitives. Nutrition is destruction in the 
occult sense, and dissolution is rescue in the occult 
sense ; because the entity, or visible man, is con- 
structed in the elements, and is as equally ashes, or 
condemned matter, as they are • and because the fire 
that feeds the body (which is its natural respiration or 



220 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



maintenance) is in itself that which (however slowly) 
destroys it. Man lives upon the lees of nature, or 
(in the Bhuddistic view) upon the 1 gross purgations 
of the celestial fire which is urging itself clear through 
the operation of the divine rescuing spirit in it. It 
follows that metaphysically all the wonderful shows 
of life are phantasmata only, and their splendours false 
and a show only. But as these shows are the medium 
and the instruments of life, without which intelli- 
gence (in the human sense) would be impossible, this 
celestial ' Second Fire ' has been deified in the acknow- 
ledgments of the first inhabitants of the world, who 
raised pillars and stones in its honour as the first 
idol. Thus man bears in his own body the picture 
of the ' Triune Reason is the head, feeling is the 
breast, and the mechanical means of both feeling and 
reasoning, or the means of his being Man, is the 
epigastric centre, from which the two first spring as 
emanations, and with which the two first form ulti- 
mately but ' one ' . The invisible magnetic, geometri- 
cal bases, or latitudes, of these three vital points, 
whose consent, or coincidence, or identity, forms 
the ' microcosm which is a copy of the same form 
in heaven, answer magically to their stellar originals. 
This is astrological ' ruling 1 by pyramidal culmination, 
and by trilinear descent or efflux, to an intersecting 
point in the latitudes of the heavens and in the man's 
body, at which upper and lower, or heaven and earth, 
interchange ; and Man is therefore said to be made 
' in the image ' of the Archetype, who has 1 descended 1 
to man, who has ' ascended ' to Him. This is the 
1 hinge-point ' of the natural and the supernatural, 
upon which the two wings of the worlds real and un- 
real revolve. The starry heavens, through whose 
astrological cross-work complications (as in a map) 
all these infinite effects are produced, and on whose 



STRANGE IDEAS CONCERNING MUSIC 221 



(for, taking gravitation away, they are the same) 
floor of lights, or cope or dome of signs or letters, all 
the 'past, present, and future' has been written by 
the finger of God (although to man they are ever 
rearranging), can be read by the competent as Fate. 
Natural and supernatural, though one is only the 
reversed side of the other, as f darkness is only the 
reversed side of light, and light is only the reversed 
side of darkness', 1 are mistaken by man for oppo- 
sites, although they are the same : man living in this 
state in darkness, although his world is light ; and 
heaven in this state being darkness, although this 
state is light. 

Music (although it is unheard by man) is necessarily 
produced in the ceaseless operations of material nature, 
because nature itself is penitential and but the pain- 
ful (and musical) expression between two dissonant 
points. The Bhuddist contends that all forms are 
but the penance of nature. Music is life, and life 
is music. Both are pain, although made delightful. 
Phenomena are not real. 

Thus colours to the human are negative as music 
addressed to the ear, the musical notes negative as 
colours addressed to the eye, and so on of the other 
senses, although they are all the same in the imagina- 
tion, without the sensorium — as dreams show. And 
life and the world, in this view, are all imagination : 
man being made in idea, and only in his own belief. 
This, again, is only pure Parseeism ; and the whole 
will be rightly regarded as the most extraordinary 
dream of philosophy — as depth of depths beyond 
idea. 

Schubert, in his Symbolism of Dreams, has the fol- 
lowing passages, which we have before adduced and 

1 * Comte de Gabalis ' ; Rosicrucian. 



i22 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



made use of for illustration : ' It may be asked whether 
that language, which now occupies so low a place in 
the estimation of men, be not the actual waking lan- 
guage of the higher regions, while we \ adds the 
philosopher, coming out with something very strange, 
' awake as we fancy ourselves, may be sunk in a sleep 
of many thousand years, or, at least, in the echo of their 
dreams, and only intelligibly catch a few dim words 
of that language of God, as sleepers do scattered 
expressions from the loud conversation of those around 
them/ 

The following is a fair view of the Rosicrucian theory 
concerning music. 

The whole world is taken as a musical instrument ; 
that is, a chromatic, sensible instrument. The com- 
mon axis or pole of the world celestial is intersected 
— where this superior diapason, or heavenly concord 
or chord, is divided — by the spiritual sun, or centre 
of sentience. Every man has a little spark (sun) in 
his own bosom. Time is only protracted conscious- 
ness, because there is no world out of the mind con- 
ceiving it. Earthly music is the faintest tradition 
of the angelic state ; it remains in the mind of man 
as the dream of, and the sorrow for, the lost paradise. 
Music is yet master of the man's emotions, and there- 
fore of the man. 

Heavenly music is produced from impact upon the 
paths of the planets, which stand as chords or strings, 
by the cross-travel of the sun from note to note, as 
from planet to planet • and earthly music is micro- 
scopically an imitation of the same, and a ' relic of 
heaven ' ; the faculty of recognition arising from the 
same supernatural musical efflux which produced the 
planetary bodies, in motived projection from the sun 
in the centre, in their evolved, proportional, har- 
monious order. The Rosicrucians taught that the 



NATURALISTS AND SUPERNATURALISTS 223 

' harmony of the spheres ' is a true thing, and not 
simply a poetic dream : all nature, like a piece of 
music, being produced by melodious combinations of 
the cross-movement of the holy light playing over 
tne lines of the planets : light flaming as the spiritual 
ecliptic, or the gladius of the Archangel Michael, to 
the extremities of the solar system. Thus are music, 
colours, and language allied. 

Of the Chaldaean astrology it may figuratively be 
said that, although their knowledge, in its shape 
of the ' Portentous Stone 1 — in this instance, their 
grave-stone — shut up the devils in the depths of the 
' Abyss and made the sages their masters (Solomon 
being the Priest or King, and his seal the 1 Talisman ' 
that secures the 4 Deep ') : Man, on account of his 
having fallen into the shadow and the corruptions of 
Existence, needs that mighty exterior Hand (before 
which all tremble) to rescue him back into his native 
original Light or Rest. All the foregoing is pure 
Bhuddism. 

Thinkers who have weighed well the character of 
those supposed infractions of natural laws which have 
admitted, as it were philosophically, the existence of 
other independent, absent, thinking spirits, communi- 
cating intelligibly in this world of ours, insist ' that 
it is impossible to suppose that the partitions between 
this world and the other world are so thin as that you 
can hear the movers in the other through/ 

Nevertheless thoughtful people are equally able to 
convict modern philosophical realists of absurdity, 
when the former adduce the following insurmountable 
objection against them : ' When we tell you of a super- 
natural thing say the supernaturalists to the realists, 
' you directly have recourse to a natural thing in which 
to find it.' This is contrary to common sense ; and 
therefore the realistic arguer has no right to dispose 



224 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



in this manner of that which is supernatural ; for his 
objections are futile and vain, and his arguments con- 
tradict themselves. Spirit and matter, when sought 
to be explained, are totally opposed ; and hence 
arises the reason why there can never be any belief 
of impossible things, and only the conviction that such 
things have been in the mind, notwithstanding the insur- 
mountable contradiction of the senses. 




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH 



THE GREAT PYRAMID 

In a very elaborate and interesting book, published in 
the year 1867, the title of which, at length, is the 
following : Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, by 
C. Piazzi Smyth, Professor of Practical Astronomy 
in the University of Edinburgh, and Astronomer 
Royal for Scotland. Edinburgh, 1867 : the conclus- 
ions (though a mistake) which we now supply from 
the author are offered as definitions, after infinite care, 
of this important name or word, ' Pyramid \ ' Pyra- 
mid ' is derived in this book from two Greek terms. 
•jrvp6g } 1 wheat ' ; fierpov, ' measure ' ; or from Cop- 
tic roots, signifying pyr, 1 division 1 ; met, ' ten \ 
However, we offer to deduce this term ' Pyramid ' 
from quite another source. The present writer orig- 
inally sought to do this in the year i860, in a disser- 
tation on the origin and purpose of the ' Pyramids 
of Egypt \ It is well known that the letters P and 
F are radically the same letter (as is evidenced by 
their peculiar pronunciation in certain countries), and 
that they are interchangeable. In Professor Smyth's 
book, flujoo? is wrongly translated ' wheat \ It 
signifies ' product or ' growth \ or ' elimination 
in other words, and in the symbolical sense, it means 
' sun-begotten or 'fire-begotten'. The Coptic de- 
rivation (re-read by a new light) is the true one. Thus 
we obtain another reason upon which we rely as the 
real interpretation of the name of the pyramid, or obe- 
lisk, or great original altar or upright, raised in the 



226 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



divinity working secondarily in nature. Hup is fire 
(or Division produced by fire) ; 'Merpov is Ten (or 
measures or spaces numbered as ten). The whole word 
means, and the entire object bearing this name means, 
the original Ten Measures or Parts of the Fiery 
Ecliptic or Solar Wheel, or the Ten Original Signs of 
the Zodiac. Therefore the Pyramids are commemora- 
tive altars raised to the divinity Fire. 

The Ophites are said to have maintained that the 
serpent of Genesis was the Aoyo?, and the ' Saviour \ 
The Logos was Divine Wisdom, and was the Bhudda, 
or Buddha, of India. The Brazen Serpent was called 
Aoyo? 3 or the ' Word by the Chaldee Paraphrast 
(Basnage, lib. iv. ch. xxv). It is very certain that, 
in ancient times, the serpent was an object of adorat- 
ion in almost all nations. The serpent-worshippers 
seem to have placed at the head, or nearly at the head, 
of all things (Maia), and most intimately connected 
with the serpent, a certain principle which they called 
'Sophia'. This is clearly a translation of the word 
c Bhudda ' into Greek. It also reminds us that the 
old Bhuddas are always under the care of the Cobra- 
Capella. This is evidenced in all the Memnonian or 
Egyptian heads ; and in the asp (or fleur-de-lis), more 
or less veiled or altered, displayed as the chief symbol 
upon the universal Sphynxes. The serpent, in one view, 
was the emblem of the evil principle, or destroyer. 
But, as we have seen before, the 1 destroyer ' was the 
s creator \ Hence he had the name, among his numer- 
ous appellations, of 0^12 ; in Hebrew, 21*^ Ob ; 
and as he was the ' logus or 1 linga ', he was also O^r } 
and in Hebrew *OD*D. Query, hence, a seraph 

or serpent ? — see Jones's Lexicon {in voce), and So^o^ 
wise. The 2u<£ and 2ocp are both the same root. The 
famous ' Brazen Serpent called Nehustan, set up 
by Moses in the Wilderness, is termed in the Targum 



THE ' OPHITES ' 0£ 1 OPHIONES ' 22J 



a 1 Saviour \ It was probably a 1 serpentine crucifix \ 
as it is called a cross by Justin Martyr. All the fore- 
going is allegorical, and hides deep Gnostic myths, 
which explain serpent-worship, united with the adorat- 
ion paid to a perpendicular. 

The three most celebrated emblems carried in the 
Greek mysteries were the Phallus, I ; the Egg, O and 
the Serpent, ; or otherwise the Phallus, the Ioni 
or Umbilicus, and the Serpent. The first, in each 
case, is the emblem of the sun, or of fire, as the male, 
or active, generative power. The second denotes the 
passive nature, or feminine principle, or the element 
of water. The third symbol indicates the destroyer, 
the reformer, or the renewer (the uniter of the two), 
and thus the preserver or perpetuator — eternally renew- 
ing itself. The universality of the serpentine worship 
(or phallic adoration) is attested by emblematic sculp- 
ture and architecture all over the world. This does 
not admit of denial. Its character and purpose are, 
however, wholly misunderstood. Not only is the worship 
of the serpent found everywhere, but it everywhere 
occupies an important station ; and the farther back 
we go, the more universally it is found, and the more 
important it appears to have been considered. The 
Destroyer or Serpent of Genesis is correctly the Reno- 
vator or Preserver. In Genesis there is a ' Tree of Know- 
ledge ' and a ' Tree of Life ' . Here we have the origin 
of the Ophites, Ophiones, or Oriental emblematical 
serpent-worshippers, to account for whom, and for 
whose apparently absurd object of adoration, our anti- 
quaries have been so much perplexed. They wor- 
shipped the Saviour-Regenerator under the strangest 
(but the sublimest) aspect in the world ; but not the 
devil, or maiific principle, in our perverse, mistaken 
ideas, and with the vulgar, downward, literal meanings 
which we apply. The mythic and mimetic art of the 



228 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Gnostics is nowhere more admirably or more success- 
fully displayed than in their hieroglyphs and pictured 
formula. Even in the blazonry and in the collars 
and badges of chivalry (which seems so remote from 
them), we find these Ophite hints. The heathen tem- 
ples and the modern ritualistic churches alike abound in 
unconscious Gnostic emblems. State ceremony har- 
bours them ; they mix with the insignia of all the 
orders of knighthood ; and they show in all the heraldic 
and masonic marks, figures, and patterns, both of 
ancient and of modern times. The religion of the 
Rosicrucians is also concealed, and unconsciously car- 
ried forward, perpetuated, and ignorantly fostered, 
by the very persons and classes who form, contrive, 
and wear decorations with special mysterious marks, 
all the world over. Every person, in unconsciously 
repeating certain figures, which form an unknown lan- 
guage, heired from the ancient times, carries into fut- 
urity, and into all parts of the world, the same carefully 
guarded traditions, for the knowing to recognize, to 
whose origin the sun, in his first revolution, may be 
figuratively said to be the only witness. Thus the great 
inexpressible 1 Talisman ' is said to be borne to the 
' initiate ' through the ages. 

Proposals were published some years ago for a book 
entitled, ' The Enigma of Alchemy and of (Edipus 
resolved ; designed to elucidate the fables, symbols, 
and other mythological disguises, in which the Her- 
metic Art has been enveloped and signalized in various 
ages, in ecclesiastical ceremonies, masonic formula, 
astronomical signs, and constellations — even in the 
emblazonments of chivalry, heraldic badges, and other 
emblems ; which, without explanation, have been 
handed down, and which are shown to have originated 
in the same universal mystic school, through each 
particular tracing their allusion to the means and 



THE HERMETIC MYSTERY 



229 



mechanism. ' This intended work was left in MS. by 
its anonymous author, now deceased, but was never 
published. The unknown author of it produced also 
in the year 1850, in one vol. 8vo, a book displaying 
extraordinary knowledge of the science of alchemy, 
which bore the name A Suggestive Enquiry into (he 
Hermetic Mystery ; with a Dissertation on the more 
celebrated of the Alchemical Philosophers. This book 
was published in London j but it is now extinct, hav- 
ing been bought up — for suppression, as we believe — 
by the author's friends after his decease, who probably 
did not wish him to be supposed to be mixed up in 
such out-of-the-way inquiries. 

The Vedas describe the Persian religion (Fire-Wor- 
ship) as having come from Upper Egypt. ' The 
mysteries celebrated within the recesses of the " hypo- 
gea " ' (caverns or labyrinths) ' were precisely of that 
character which is called Freemasonic, or Cabiric. 
The signification of this latter epithet is, as to written 
letters, a desideratum. Selden has missed it ; so have 
Origen and Sophocles. Strabo, too, and Montfaucon, 
have been equally astray. Hyde was the only one 
who had any idea of its composition when he declared 
that " It was a Persian word, somewhat altered from 
Gabri of Guebri, and signifying Fire- Worshippers 'V 
See O'Brien's Round Towers of Ireland, 1834, p. 354). 
Pococke, in his India in Greece, is very sagacious and 
true in his arguments ; but he tells only half the story 
of the myths in his supposed successful divestment of 
them of all unexplainable character, and of exterior 
supernatural origin. He supposes that all the mystery 
must necessarily disappear when he has traced, and 
carefully pointed out, the identity and transference of 
these myths from India into Egypt and into Greece, 
and their gradual spread westward. But he is wholly 
mistaken ; and most other modern explainers are equ- 



230 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



ally mistaken. Pococke contemplates all from the 
ethnic and realistic point of view. He is very learned 
in an accumulation of particulars, but his learning is 
' of the earth, earthy ' ; by which we mean that, like 
the majority of modern practical philosophers, he 
argues from below to above, and not, in the higher way, 
from above to below, or (contrary to the inductive, or 
Aristotelian, or Baconian method) from generals to 
particulars, or from the light of inspiration into the 
sagacities of darkness, as we may call unassisted world's 
knowledge — always vain. 

The Feast of Lanterns, or Dragon-Feast, occurs in 
China at their New Year, which assimilates with that 
of the Jews, and occurs in October at the high tides. 
They salute the festival with drums and music, and 
with explosions of crackers. During the Feast, noth- 
ing is permitted to be thrown into water (for fear of pro- 
faning it). Here we have the rites of Aphrodite or 
Venus, or the Watery Deity, observed even in China, 
which worship, in Protean forms, being also the wor- 
ship of the Dragon or Snake, prevails, in its innumer- 
able contradictory and effective disguises, over the 
whole world. How like are the noises and explosions 
of crackers, etc., to the tumult of the festivals of Dion- 
usus or Dionysius, to the riot or rout of the Corybantes 
amongst the Greeks, to the outcry and wild music of 
the priests of the Salii, and, in modern times, to the 
noises said to be made at initiation by the Freemasons, 
whose myths are claimed to be those (or imitative of 
those) of the whole world, whose Mysteries are said 
to come from that First Time, deep-buried in the blind, 
unconscious succession of the centuries ! In the 
Royal-Arch order of the Masons, as some have said, 
at an initiation, the 1 companions ' fire pistols, clash 
swords, overturn chairs, and roll cannon-balls about. 
The long-descended forms trace from the oldest tra- 



MARKS OF THE EGYPTIAN DEITIES 231 



dition ; the origin, indeed, of most things is only doubt 
or conjecture, hinted in symbols. 

The Egyptian Deities may always be recognized by 
the following distinctive marks : 

Phthas, Ptah, by the close-fitting Robe, Four Steps, 
Baboon, Cynocephalus. 

Ammon, Amn, by a Ram's Head, Double Plume, 
Vase, Canopus. 

The Sun-God (Phre or Ra) has a Hawk's Head, 
Disc, Serpent, Urseus. 

Thoth, or Thoyt, is Ibis-headed (means a scribe or 
priest). 

Sochos, or Suches, has a Hawk. Hermes Trisme- 
gistus (Tat) displays a Winged Disc. 

The Egyptians, however, never committed their 
greater knowledge to marks or figures, or to writing 
of any kind. 

Figure 313 : the Gnostics have a peculiar talisman 
of Fate (Homer's Aura). This is one of the rarest 
types to be met with in ancient art. In Stosch's vast 
collection, Winckelmann was unable to find a single 
indubitable example. It is of brown agate, with trans- 
verse shades, and is an Etruscan intaglio or Gnostic 
gem. The Gnostics, p. 238, makes a reference to this 
figure. 

Later in our book (figs. 191, 300, 301) we give a 
figure of the ' Chnuphis Serpent ' raising himself aloft. 
Over, and corresponding to the rays of his crown, are 
the seven vowels, the elements of his name. The usual 
triple ' S.S.S.' and bard, and the name ' XNOYBIC ', 
are the reverse of this Gnostic gem. It is a beautiful 
intaglio on a pale plasma of the finest quality, extremely 
convex, as it has been found on examination. 

In the Ophic planetary group (Origen in Celsum, 
vi. 25) Michael is figured as a lion, Suriel as a bull, 
Raphael as a serpent, Gabriel as an eagle, Thauta- 



232 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



baoth as a bear, Eratsaoth as a dog, Ouriel as an ass. 
Emanations are supposed to pass through the seven 
planetary regions, signified by these ChaMae an names, 
on their way to this world. It was through these 
seven planetary spiritual regions, or spheres, rilled 
with their various orders of angels, that the Gnostics 
mythed the Saviour Jesus Christ to have passed 
secretly ; disguising Himself and His Mission in order 
to win securely to His object. In evading recognition, 
in His acceptable disguises, through these already- 
created ' Princedoms of Angels He veiled His purpose 
of His Voluntary Sacrifice for the Human Race till He 
was safe, in His investment in 4 Humanity ' for the 
accepted ' Propitiation ' — through the ' Virgin ' for 
production only ; not for 1 office \ 

There was deep mystery in the Gnostic method of 
teaching that, although the ' Sacrifice ' (the source of 
sacrifice in all faiths) was complete and real and per- 
fect, the Saviour did not — nor could — suffer bodily 
or be nailed really, and die upon the Cross, but that 
He suffered in appearance only, and vicariously — the 
Scripture being misread. The Gnostics maintained 
that Simon the Cyrenean — who, the Evangelist states, 
bore His Cross — did really bear it as the culprit, and 
suffered upon it. As human and divine are totally 
different, this could not impair the efficacy of the 
4 Crucifixion for the substitution of persons was 
miraculous and remote (of course) from human sense. 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



PART II 
CHAPTER THE FIRST 

HISTORY OF THE TOWER OR STEEPLE 

We have asserted, in an earlier part of our book, that 
the pyramidal or triangular form which fire assumes 
in its ascent to heaven was, in the monolithic typology, 
used to signify the Great Generative Power. The 
coarse sensuality which seems inseparable from modern 
ideas about the worship of the pillar or upright had 
no place really in the solemn ancient mind, in which 
ideas of religion largely and constantly mingled. We 
must not judge the ancients by too rigid an adherence 
to our own prepossessions — foolish and inveterately 
hardened as they continually are. 

The adoration paid to this image of the phallus, 
which has persisted as an object of worship through 
all the ages, in all countries, was only the acknow- 
ledgment, in the ancient mind, of wonder at the 
seemingly accidental and unlikely, but certainly most 
complete and effectual, means by which the continuat- 
ion of the human race is secured. The cabalistic 
arguers contended that 1 Man ' was a phenomenon ; 
that he did not, otherwise than in his presentment, 
seem intended ; that there appeared nothing even in 
the stupendous chain of organisms that seemed specially 
to hint his approach, or to explain his appearance 
(strange as this seems), according to likelihood and 

233 



234 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



sequence ; that between the highest of the animals 
and the being ' Man ' there was a great gulf, and 
seemingly an impassable gulf ; that some ' after- 
reason \ to speak according to the means of the com- 
prehension of man, induced his introduction into the 
Great Design ; that, in short, * Man 1 originally was 
not intended. There is a deep mystery underlying 
all these ideas, which we find differently accounted 
for in the various theologies. 

We are here only speaking some of the abstruse 
speculations of the old philosophers, whose idea of 
creation, and of the nature of man and his destiny, 
differed most materially — if not wholly — from the 
acceptable ideas which they chose to inculcate, and 
which they wished to impress upon ordinary minds. 
Thus their deeper speculations were never committed 
to writing, because they did not admit of interpre- 
tation in this way ; and if so handed down or pro- 
mulgated, the}' would have been sure to have been 
rejected and disbelieved, on account of the impossi- 
bility of their being believed. In indicating some of 
the strange notions propounded by the Sophists, and, 
if possible, still more remarkably by the early Christian 
Fathers, we desire to disclaim any participation with 




Fig. 42 Fig. 43 Fig. 44 



them. Our personal belief of these theories must not 
be necessarily supposed from our seeming to advocate 
them. There is no doubt that they were very acute 



TYPES OF PHALLIC FIGURES 235 



and profound persons who undertook the examination 
and reconcilement of the philosophical systems at the 
introduction of Christianity. 




Fig. 45 Fig. 46 Fig- 47 

Pyramid Tower or ' Tor ' 



The succeeding array of phallic figures will be found 
interesting, as tracing out to its progenitor or proto- 
type that symbol which we call the ' upright \ This 



D 




Fig. 48 : Tower Fig. 49 • Tower of Babel 



architectural descent we shall call the ' Genealogy of 
the Tower or Steeple'. 

The Architectural Genealogy of the ' Tower ' or 
' Steeple ' (so to speak) is full of suggestion, and is 
closely connected with the story of the phallus. 

The insignia on the heads of the cobras in the friezes 
of the Egyptian Court 
in the Crystal Palace 
are coloured on the 
Right, White ; on the 
Left, Red. These imply 
masculine and feminine 

ideas. Fig- 5o: Pyramid Fig. 51 : Scarabams 




236 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Fig. 42 is the Winged Human-headed Lion. It 
comes from the Nineveh Gallery. It may be recog- 
nized as the Winged Bull, and also as the Winged 
' Lion of St Mark'. 

The 'Lion', 'Bull', ' Eagle ', 'Man', are the 




Fig. 52 : Egyptian Colossus 



symbols of the Evangelists ; the ' Man or ' Angel ' 
standing for St. Matthew, the ' Lion ' for St. Mark, 
the ' Bull ' for St. Luke, and the 4 Eagle * for St. John. 
In these strange aspects the Evangelists figured in 
many ancient churches, and on most fonts. These 




Fig. 53 Pyramid Fig. 54 

Egyptian Seated Figure (British Museum) 

representative forms are also said to have been the 
' Four Cherubim 9 of the Ark of the Hebrews. Her- 
metically they signify the four elements or the four 
corners or angle-points of the ' Lesser ' or ' Mani- 
fested World or the ' Microcosm ' of the Cabalists. 



THE PYRAMIDS 



237 



Fig. 45 represents an Obelisk at Nineveh, now in 
the British Museum. Jacob's Pillar, the Sacred Stone 
in Westminster Abbey, ' Bethel', etc., 'Gilgal', have 
a mythic alliance with the obelisk. 

Regarding the pyramids the following may be 




Fig. 55 : Colossal Head (British Museum) 

advanced : Murphy, the delineator of the Alhambra, 
considered the Pointed Arch to be a system founded 
on the principle of the Pyramid. The pointed or 
vertical Saracenic or Gothic arch presents the form 
of the upper portion of the human <fioi\\os. The Sara- 




Fig. 56 



cenic arch denotes the union of the Linga and Yoni. 

In fig. 56 we have the sun rising from between the 
horns of Eblis (here taken for the pyramids). This 
is a poetical superstition of the Arabians, who there- 
fore turn to the North to pray ; in contradiction to 



238 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



the practice of the Persians, who adore the rising sun. 
The Arabians avert in prayer from this malific sign 
of the ' horns because the sun is seen 
rising from between them ; and when 
disclosing from between these mythic 
pillars, the sun becomes a portent. 
Fig. 57 Fig. 57 is an Egyptian seal, copied 

by Layard {Nineveh and Babylon, p. 156). 
Subject : the Egyptian god Harpocrates, seated on the 



-122.- ^^/y^lo^Sf^^^sy Si 




Fig. 58 : Figures on the Egyptian Sarcophagus in the British Museum 

mythic lotus, in adoration of the Yoni, or mrr, or 

havah. 

The Druidical Circles, and single stones standing 
in solitary places, are all connected with the mystic 
speculations of the Rosicrucians. 




Fig. 59 



The eminences, St. Michael's Mount and Mont 
St. -Michel, were dedicated by the Phoenicians to the 
Sun-God (Hercules), as the ' Hydra ' or ' Dragon- 




DRVIDICAL STONES 239 

slayer \ These mounts in the Channel are secondary 
' Hercules' Pillars similar to Calpe and Abyla. 

The Architectural Genealogy of the 1 Tower ' or 
* Steeple ' displays other phases of the alterations of 




Figs. 60, 61 

Heads of Ships : a. Fiddle-head ; b, c, d. Gondola ; e. Ceres' Reaping-hook, also 
Saturn ; /. Blade and Fasces ; g. Beak of Galley ; h. Glaive ; i. Prow of Grecian 
Galley. 



the ' upright \ All towers are descendants of the 
biblical votive stones, and in multiplying have changed 
in aspect according to the ideas of the people of the 




Fig. 62 : Stonehenge 



country in which they were raised. This Architec- 
tural Genealogy of the ' Tower ' or ' Steeple ' gives 
many varieties. 

The groups on p. 244 supply new changes in the 



240 THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Tower or Upright, and furnish evidence how it passed 
into the Christian times, and became the steeple. 
When thus changed and reproduced, according to the 




Fig. 63 Fig. 64 

Druidicai Stone in Persia Druidical Circle at Darab, in Arabia 




Fig. 65 Figs. 66. 67 

' Kit's Cotty-house \ Kent Ancient British Coin, men- 

tioned by Camden 




Fig. 68 

England : St. Michael's 
Mount, Mount's Bay, 
Cornwall. ' Dragon 
Horns, or Fires. (Mo- 
loch or Baal) 



Fig. 69 

France, Normandy : Mont 
St. -Michel. (' Montjoie ! ' 
' Montjoy ! ' — old Battle- 
cry of the Gauls.) 4 Dra- 
gon '. Horns, or Fires. 
(Moloch or Baal) 
St. Michael or the Sun (Hercules). 



British Chan- 
nel, ' Dragon- 
mouth ' (Ga- 
lilee from the 
West) 



ROUND TOWERS AND OBELISKS 241 



architectural ideas of the builders of the different 
countries where the same memorial pillar was raised, 
it assumed in time the peculiarities of the Gothic or 



pointed style. The steeples of the churches, the 
figures of which we give on p. 244, indicate the gradual 
growth and expansion of the romantic or pointed 



Fig. 72 : Obeliscus Fig. 73 : Obelisk Fig. 75 : Two Round Towers 



architecture, which is generally called Gothic ; and 
they prove how the upright, or original phallic form, 
was adopted and gradually mingled in Christian 
architecture — in reality at last becoming its dominant 
feature. 




Fig. 71 
Round Tower 
Devenish, Ireland 



Fig. 70 
Round Tower, Ireland 




242 



THE R0S1CRVC1ANS 



Fig. 96 represents one of the Western Towers of 
St. Paul's Cathedral, London, which is one of the 
double lithoi (or obelisks), placed always in front of 




Fig. 74 : Propylon, Thebes 



every temple, Christian as well as heathen. It is 
surmounted by the ' fir-cone ' (thyrsus) of Bacchus, 
and the sculptured urns below it are represented as 
flaming with the mystic fire. 

77 78 76 




Fig. 77 Fig. 78 Fig. 76 

The 'Cootub Minar ', Antrim Round Round Tower 
near Delhi, supposed Tower at Bhaugul- 

to have been built pore, India 

circa 1220 

The Architectural Genealogy of the ' Tower • or 
' Steeple ' in fig. 97, p. 246, exemplifies a parallel 
of growth between all the uprights, and exhibits 



PILLAR-STONES 



243 



their changes of form, and proves their reproduction 
through the centuries, both in the East, and more 
particularly in the western countries of Europe. In 



80 79 




Fig. 79 : Round Tower, Peru 

Fig. 80 : Persian Round Tower (From Hanway) 

Fig. 81 : Round Tower, Central America 

the lower portion of this fig. 97 we have a further 
outline-configuration of various towers and steeples, 
displaying the new character given, and the gradual 

83 82 




85 84 

Fig. 82 : Mudros of Phoenicia (Dr Hyde) 

Fig. 83 : Mahody of Elephanta (Capt. Pyke) 

Fig. 84 : Muidhr of Inismurry 

Fig. 85 : Pillar-stone, Hill of Tara 

variations of the ' Tower in the first instance, and 
afterwards of the ( Steeple ' ; both being reproductions 
of the first idea of the lithos, upright, or phallus : the 
Idol ' imitative of the ' Flame of Fire \ 



244 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



The two pillars in fig. 102 are monuments in Penrith 
Churchyard. These are the familiar double ' Runic ' 
uprights, pillars, or spires. 

All the minarets and towers in the East display in 




Fig. 86 

Brixworth Church, 
Northamptonsh., 
supposed circa 
670 




Fig. 87 

Tower in Dover 
Castle, circa 
400 




Fig. 88 

Turret at the east 
end of St. Peter's 
Church, Oxford, 
circa 1180 



the peculiar curves of their summits the influence 
of the same phallic idea, as an attentive examination 
will prove. 

There seems to be little or no reason to doubt that 
the much-disputed origin of the pointed Gothic arch, 




Fig. 89 : Little Saxam Church, Suffolk, circa 1120 

Fig. 90 : Rochester Cathedral (Turret), 11 80 

Fig. 91 : Bishop's Cleeve Church, Gloucestershire, circa 1180 

or lancet-shaped arch, and the Saracenic or Moorish 
horseshoe arch, is the union and blending of the two 
generative figures, namely, the 1 discus 9 or round, 
and the upright and vertical, or 1 phallic shape, as 
indicated in the diagrams on pp. 248, 249. These 



CHRISTIAN TOWERS 245 

forms, in their infinite variety, are the parents of all 
architecture. 

The Zodiac itself is, in certain senses, a Genesis, 



94 93 92 




Fig. 92 : Almondsbury Church, Gloucestershire, circa 1150 

Fig. 93 : (Decorated Period) Salisbury Cathedral, Central Spire, 1350 

Fig. 94 : St. Mary's Church, Cheltenham, circa 1250 

or ' History of Creation \ The ' Twelve Signs * may 
be interpreted as the ' Twelve Acts ' of the Divine 
Drama. Some of the Mosques in the East are sur- 



96 95 




Fig. 95 : Bayeux Cathedral, Normandy, circa 1220 
Fig. 96 : St Paul's Cathedral 

mounted with twelve minarets, and the number 
twelve occurs frequently in connexion with the 
theology of the Moslems. 

Fig. 1 15 A is a scale enrichment, introduced into 



246 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

architecture, to symbolize the Female Deity, or 
' Virgin born of the Waters \ 




Fig. 97 



The spectator looks to the faces of the figure marked 
116. 

Fig. 117 is a Masonic, Mosaic, or Tesselated Pave- 




102 



Fig. 98 : Waltham, Essex (one of the Eleanor Crosses) 
Fig. 99 : Ancient Cross, Langherne, Cornwall 
Fig. 102 : Memorial Stones 

ment. (Query, whether this pavement of black and 
white squares is not the origin of the ancient Chess- 
Table, or Chess-Board ?) The game of Chess, with 



CROSSES AND MINARETS 247 

the board upon which it is played, is probably 'Masonic' 
in its invention. 

In old representations of the cathedral church of 
Notre Dame at Paris, the symbols of the masculine 




Fig. 100 : Ancient Cross, Margam, South Wales 

Fig. 101 : Ancient Cross, St. Patrick, County of Louth 

divinity — such as the sun and some others — are 
placed over the right hand, or masculine western 
tower, flanking the Galilee, or Great Western Porch ; 
thus unmistakably hinting its meaning. Over the 




Fig. 103 

Group of Minarets or Towers, selected from Examples in Oriental Towns 

corresponding left hand, or female tower, are placed 
the crescent horns of the moon, and some other in- 
dications, announcing its dedication to the female 
deified principle. 

In all Christian churches— particularly in Pro- 



248 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



testant churches, where they figure most conspicu- 
ously — the two tables of stone of the Mosaic Dis- 
pensation are placed over the altar, side by side, as 
a united stone, the tops of which are rounded. 



105 104 105 




Fig. 104 : Column (Campanile of San Fig. 106 : Top of the ' Phallus \ Mosque 

Marco, at Venice) of Ibu Tooloon, Cairo 

Fig. 105 : Domes at Jerusalem Fig. 107 : Small Mohammedan Mosque 

Fig. 118, on p. 250, represents the separated original 
' Lithoi \ when united. They then form the ' Double 
Tables ' (or ' Table ') of Stone. In the 1 Latter \ 



108 115 113 




iioa no 114 113 

Fig. 108 : Mosque of Omar Fig. no : Moorish Tower 

Fig. iioa : Curves of a Moorish or Saracenic Horseshoe Arch 

Fig. 112 : Cathedral of Cordova : form of the Arches 

Fig. 113 : Patterns of Moorish Doors 

Fig. 114 : Moresque Arch Fig. 115 : Alhambra 

or 'Christian (+) Dispensation', the 'Ten Com- 
mandments are over the Altar composed of the 
4 Law ' (Five Commandments to the Right), and the 
' Gospel ' (Five Commandments to the Left). 
The ten commandments are inscribed in two 



RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE 



groups of five each, in columnar form. The five to 
the right (looking from the altar) mean the ' Law ' ; 
the five to the left mean the ' Prophets \ The right 
stone is masculine, the left stone is feminine. They 



Fig. 109 : Russian Cathedral, Moscow 

Russian architecture is strongly infused with the eastern picturesque spirit. The 
curves of its domes and the forms of its steeples are all oriental. 



correspond to the two disjoined pillars of stone (or 
towers) in the front of every cathedral, and of every 
temple in the heathen times. 

, The pomegranate is a badge of the Plantagenets ; 



115A 

Fig. in : The Phallus and Discus, as seen in tig. iioa, united 
Fig. 114A : Query, Aquarius ? Fig. 115 a, Scale Enrichment 

in its form it resembles the crescent moon ; it is 
a symbol of the female influence in nature. There 
is here an unexpected concurrence with the crescent 
moon and star of the Orientals ; for above the pome- 
granate — which is figured sometimes as the crescent 
moon in the heraldic insignia of the Plantagenets 
— the six-pointed star appears in the hollow of the 




in 




250 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



crescent, with its points in the curvilinear or serpen- 
tine form. The crescent moon of Egypt and that 
of Persia is the thin sickle of the new moon reclining 




Fig. 116 

1 : Rosicrucian ' Macrocosmos 

2 : Rosicrucian ' Microcosmos ' 
A : Jachin (p3*) 

b : Boaz (?m)— Isis 



Fig. 117 



on her back, and seemingly with the star issuant 
from between her horns ; which is evidently an 
Egyptian hint coming from the old hieroglyphic 
times. This mysterious crescent and star is the badge 



Double Lithoi : The ' Tables ' of Stone. 



T achin 
(Right Pillar.) 

• The Law * 
(Man) 



A 

because it 
was delivered 
by- 




Boaz 
(Left Pillar) 

The ' Prophets 
or 

The Gospel ' 
(Woman) 



Q 

Because it 

came 
through — 



The union of ! and of- 



Fig. 118 

is consequently +, or the ' Cross ' 



of the sect of Ali among the Mohammedans, and it 
plays a most important part in augurial or religious 
heraldry. The standards of Egypt, Persia, and 
Arabia are gules, or Mars, or the fiery colour. It is 



THE CHRISTIAN ALTAR 251 

the ardent, or masculine, or red colour of Ali. The 
colours of Turkey, on the other hand, are strictly those 
of Mohammed, and unconsciously honour the female 
element in displaying the green, or the vert, or the 
woman's colour, or Friday colour, that of the Moham- 
medan Sabbath. This green is the vert, or ' Venus 
of Mecca (see page (390). The Turkish standard 
divides party-per-pale the masculine red of the sect of 
Ali with the green of the Hadgi ; allotting to the 
former the place of honour, or the dexter side of the 
emblazonment. 

The Christian altar is divided, as a hieroglyphic, 
into two halves or sides, before which the representative 
priest extends his hands, standing before it with his 
right hand (meaning the 4 Law ') to the right, and 
his left hand (meaning the ' Prophets ') to the left ; 
the first of which signifies the masculine (Jewish), 
and the second the feminine (Christian — because the 
Saviour was ' born of a woman '), mystic celestial 
power. 

Some monograms or hieroglyphic expressions, mean- 
ing the ' Salvator Mundi/ show the Roman letter 
* I ' (Jesus) in front, in large size ; the letter ' H ' 
(which is feminine, and Greek in its origin, meaning 
here 'Man, as bom of Woman') much smaller; and 
behind, interlacing and combining the first two letters, 
is the single curved or cursive ' S \, which stands 
for ' S.S.', the Holy Spirit, or the Third Person of 
the Trinity. The whole, in another way, is ' Jesus 
Hominum Salvator \ Nearly all the sacred mono- 
grams, with the intention of making the letter denot- 
ing the * Man ' prominent, present the letter ' I 1 
large ; in the heraldic language surtout, or ' over 
all \ The monogram of the Saviour is some- 
times seen in the ' Ark ', or ' vesica piscis 1 , which 
is a pointed oval figure, familiar in Gothic archi- 



252 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



tecture, and shaped like a boat or a shuttle, counter- 
changing the letters and the closing arcs, white and 
black — the black occupying the left or female side, 
according to the ideas of the Templars. The stan- 
dards of these soldier-monks were white and black, 
either oblong or forked. 

There are two columns of that heavy, severe order, 
however grand and impressive, which distinguishes 
the early Norman period of architecture in England, 
in regard to which, though abounding in far-off her- 
metic suggestions, we have seen no notice in anti- 
quarian quarters. These two columns comprise a 
part of the colonnade in the White Tower, or central 
tower, of the Tower of London. The capital of the 
first column is square, but it is rounded at the angles 
by a cut to the hypotrachelium, or base-ring, of the 
captial. The tops of these cuts are formed by volutes 
similar to the horns of the Corinthian and Ionic capitals. 
The male volute is to the right, and is a spiral volve, 
from which issues a dependent budding flower dropping 
seed. The volve to the left, which is a series of rings 
enclosing a point, is female. A twisted perpendicular, 
like a horn, projects from the base on this left side. 
The capital of the other column presents a not un- 
usual Norman form of two truncated tables or faces 
rounded below and divided in the middle. These 
we interpret as meaning the ( woman ' and the ' man 
side by side, and left and right. These glyphs in 
the two capitals of the columns signify * Jachin ' 
and ' Boaz and stand for the ' First Man, and the 
' First Woman \ The mysterious letter 1 Tau which 
is the same as the Runic Hammer of Thor, and which 
in truth is a ' Cross / occupies the centre-point, or, 
heraldically, the 1 honour-point of the first column 
to the right. The master-masons were celebrated 
in their art of concealing myths, or hinting them 



NAPOLEON 



253 



cautiously in the most difficult and far-off resemblances. 
The curious reader is referred to our illustration, figs. 
119, 120. 

The character of the ' Head ' which the Templars 
were charged with having worshipped in their secret 
' encampments or ' mystic lodges has been the 
subject of much dispute. Some say it was the head 
of Proserpine, or of Isis, or of the 1 Mother of Nature ' 
presented under certain strange aspects. Others 
assert that the figure was male, and that of Dis or 
Charon, according to the classic nomenclature. The 
object was reputed to be a talisman, and it is called by 
some the head of Medusa, or the snake-haired visage, 
dropping blood which turned to snakes, and trans- 
forming the beholder to stone. It was this head, or 
one of a similar description, which was supposed 
to serve as the talisman or recognitive mark of the 
secret fraternity or society, headed by Pichegru and 
others, which was suppressed by Napoleon, and the 
members of which were tried and condemned as 
aiming at revolutionary objects. Why Napoleon 
adopted this mysterious supposed magical head, as 
he is said to have done, on the suppression and de- 
struction of this revolutionary body — to which we 
refer elsewhere — and why he chose to place his own 
head in the centre-place before occupied by this 
imagined awe-inspiring countenance, and adopted 
the whole as the star of his newly founded ' Legion 
of Honour it is very difficult to say. In the East 
there is a tradition of this insupportable magic counten- 
ance, which the Orientals assign to a 1 Veiled Prophet 
similar to the mysterious personage in Lalla Rookh. 



CHAPTER THE SECOND 



PRESENCE OF THE ROSICRUCIANS IN HEATHEN AND 
CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE 

A question may here arise whether two corresponding 
pillars, or columns, in the White Tower, London, 
do not very ingeniously conceal, masonically, the 




Fig. 121 Egypt, Persia : Sect of Ali 

mythic formula of the Mosaic Genesis, ' Male and 
Female created He them \ etc. Refer below to figs. 
119, 120. 

1. Tor, or • Hammer of Thor 1 T(au). 



no 120 




124 123 

Figs. 119, 120: Columns to Chapel in the 4 White Tower', London. Style, 
Early Norman, 1081. Fig. 119 — (1) Mystic ' Tau ' ; (2) Male, Right; (3) 
Female, Left. 

Fig. 123: Castle-Rising Church, Norfolk. Fig. 124: Romsey Abbey, Hants. 

254 



EARLY CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS 255 



2. Corinthian Volutes, or ' Ram's Horns \ 
The crescent moon and star is a Plantagenet badge. 
It is also the Badge of the Sultan of Turkey. Also, 
with a difference, it displays the insignia of Egypt. 



Fig. 125 : St. Peter's Churcfi, Northampton 

Fig. 126 : S — out of the Arms of the +. (Font, Runic and Saxon. Bridekirk Church, 
Cumberland) 



The flag of Egypt is the ensign of the sect of Ali (the 
second Mohammedan head of religion), which is 
' Mars, a Crescent, Luna ; within the horns of which 
is displayed an estoile of the second ' — abandoning 



the vert, or green, of the * Hadgi or of Mecca, the 
site of the apotheosis of Mohammed. The Moham- 
medan believers of the sect of Ali rely on the 4 mas- 
culine principle ' — more closely, in this respect, assimil- 
ating with the Jews ; and therefore their distinctive 
heraldic and theological colour is red, which is male, 
to the exclusion of the other Mohammedan colour, 





Fig. 127 

The Ten 'Tables 
Commandments, or * 1 of Stone' 



Five ' Commandments ' to the T* Five ' Commandments ' to the 
Right, Masculine, ' Law ' Left, the ' Prophets ', or the 

' Gospel ' 



256 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



green, which is female. The ' Hadgi or Pilgrims 
to Mecca, wear green ; the Turkish Mussulmans wear 






Fig. 128 Fig. 129 

A lamp, Roma Sotteranea IXGTS 



Fig. 130 



red and green, according to their various titles of 
honour, and to their various ranks. 

The Hospital of St. Cross, near Winchester, abounds 

I H core 

9 




Fig. 131: 



X PC ^CTOC 

Devices from the Tombs in the Catacombs at Rome 



in the earliest Norman mouldings. The architecture 
of St. Cross presents numerous hermetic suggestions. 
The identity of Heathen and of Christian Symbols 





Fig. 132 



Fig. 133 



Fig. 134 




Fig. 135 



Fig. iq6 



is displayed in all our old churches in degrees more 
or less conclusive. 

The ' Ten fingers ' of the two hands (made up of 
each ' Table ' of Five) are called in old parlance, the 
' ten commandments \ ' I will write the ten com- 



GNOSTIC FIGURES 257 

mandments in thy face ' was spoken in fury, in the 
old-fashioned days, of an intended assault. The 
hands explain the meaning of this proverbial expres- 
sion, interpreted astrologically. Palmistry is called 
Chiromancy, because Apollo, mythologically, was 
taught 'letters' by Chiron, the ' Centaur \ 




Fig. 137 ' Monogram of the Three Figs. 138, 139 : The Heathen Monogram 
Emblems carried in the Mysteries of the Triune 

The devices on most Roman Bronze Lamps present 
continual Gnostic ideas. 

The Temple Church, London, will be found to 
abound with Rosicrucian hieroglyphs and anagram- 
matical hints in all parts, if reference be made to it 




Fig. 140 : Monogram of the Saviour 

by an attentive inquirer — one accustomed to these 
abstruse studies. 

These designs supply a variety of Early Christian 
Symbols or Hieroglyphs, drawn from Roman originals 
in all parts of the world. 

The iEolian Harp, or Magic Harp, gave forth real 
strains in the wind. These were supposed to be 
communications from the invisible spirits that people 
the air in greater or lesser number. See figs. 141, 
142. 

The above music consists of a magical incantation 
to the air, or musical charms, supposed magically to 

s 



258 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



be played from the frontispieces, as musical instru- 
ments, of two of the most celebrated ancient religious 



H 






> — 




m 

e 






— - 












k 




— 1 1 


i — 



Fig. 141 : Melody (or Melodic Expression) of the Portico of the Parthenon 
Fig. 142 : General Melody (or Melodic Expression) of the Pantheon, Rome 

structures. The Cabalists imagined that the arrange- 
ments of the stars in the sky, and particularly the 




Fig. 143 

Alternate Direct and Crooked Radii, or ' Glories ' set round Sacred Objects 

accidental circumvolvent varying speed of the planets 
of the solar system, produced music — as men know 




Figs. 144, 145 : Collar of Esses 

music. The Sophists maintained that architecture, 
in another sense, was harmonious communication, 



CHRISTIAN AND CLASSIC GLYPHS 



259 



addressed to a capable apprehension — when the archi- 
tecture was true to itself, and therefore of divine origin. 






146 147 148 

Fig. 146 : Egg-and-Tongue Moulding, Caryatic Prostyle, Pandroseuin 

(Temple of Erechtha?us, Athens) 
Fig. 147 : Moslem : the Crescent and Star : also Plantagenet 
Fig. 148 : Honeysuckle, Greek Stele 

Hence the music on p. 258. These passages were 
supposed to be magic charms, or invocations, addressed 



Fig. 149 : Egg-and-Tongue Moulding, Roman example 




IFvT 




150 151 > 152 

Fig. 150 : Rhamasseion, Thebes, Caryatic Portico 
Fig. 151 : India, origin of the 1 Corinthian ' 

Fig. 152 : India, Rudimental Corinthian Capital, as also Rudimental Christian. 




Fig- 153 



by day and night to the intelligent beings who filled 
the air invisibly. They were played from the fronts 



26o 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



of the Parthenon, Athens, and the Pantheon, Rome, 
according to the ideas of the superstitious Greeks and 
of the Oriental Christian Church. 

In fig. 153 we have a representation of Bersted 
Church, as seen (magnified) from a rising hill, oyer 




Fig. 154 : Stone Crosses at Sandbach, in Cheshire 

a hop-garden, at about the distance of half a mile. 
Bersted is a little village, about three miles from Maid- 
stone, Kent, on the Ashford road. In the chancel of 
Bersted Church, Robert Fludd, or Flood (' Robertus 




Fig. 156 Fig. 155 



de Fluctibus the head of the Rosicrucians in Eng- 
land, lies buried. He died in 1637. 

Fig. 155 displays the standard Maypole, or authentic 
Maypole, with all its curious additions ; and we add 
their explanation. In the upper portion we have the 



THE MAYPOLE 



261 



Apex of the Phallus, the Quatre-feuilles, and the 
Discus or Round. The lower portion is the Linga, 



•5.4. 3 



/ 6. Z 



J57 



%%6 



2 8 3 ® 158 



Fig. 157: Hindoo Monograms of Planets: (1) Mercury, Buddha (Boodh) ; 

(2) Venus ; (3) Mars ; (4) Jupiter ; (5) Saturn ; (6) Moon ; (7) Sun 
Fig. 158 : Astrological Symbols of Planets : (1) Sol ; (2) Luna ; (3) Mercury ; 
(4) Venus ; (5) Mars ; (6) Jupiter ; (7) Saturn 

Lingham, or Phallus, ' wreathed ' ; also the ' Pole ' 
of the ship ' Argo ' (' Arco ') ; otherwise the ' Tree 



160 






159 



161 




163 




162 



Fig. 159 : Buddhist Emblem 

Fig. 160 : 4 Shield of David ', or, the 1 Seal of Solomon * 
Fig. 161 : Phallic Triad 

Fig. 162 : Astrological Hand : (1) Jupiter ; (2) Saturn ; (3) Sun ; (4) Mercury ; 

(5) Mars ; (6) Moon ; (7) Venus 
Fig. 163 : Indian and Greek 

of Knowledge ' . The ribbons of the Maypole should 
be of the seven prismatic colours. 

Fig. 156 shows the union of the Phallus and Yoni, 





Fig. 164 : Isis, ' Dragon's Head ' Fig. 165 : Hand in Benediction 

and exhibits unmistakably the destination and pur- 
pose of the familiar Maypole. 



262 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Each finger in fig. 162 is devoted to a separate planet. 
Refer to the engraving of the hand. 

Fig. 167, ' Hook of Saturn '.Crook of Bishops \ 
1 By hook or crook meaning, ' By fair means or 
foul is a proverbial expression, continually heard. 

There are two works which will assist in throwing 
light upon that mystic system of the ancients, pro- 
bably originating in the dreaming East, that refers 
the production of music to architectural forms or 
geometric diagrams ; as columns and entablatures, 
or upright lines and cross-lines, and mathematical arcs 
and diagonals, in their modifications and properties, 
of course are. These books, which will help to explain 



the passages of music given at p. 258, figs. 141, 142, 
are Hay's Natural Principles and Analogy of the Har- 
mony of Form, and a very original and learned musical 
production, entitled The Analogy of the Laws of Musical 
Temperament to the Natural Dissonance of Creation, 
by M. Vernon, published in London in 1867. Through 
a strange theory, the music at p. 258 of our book is 
taken as the expression of the geometrical fronts of 
the two great temples, the Parthenon at Athens and 
the Pantheon at Rome, which are supposed to have 
been built with perfect art. We have ' translated ' 
these phantom iEolian melodies played in the winds 
(so to express it), and fixed them in modern musical 
notation. 




Fig. 166 : Egyptian Alto- Relievo 
(British Museum) 



Fig. 167 : '* Hook of Saturn 
' Crook of Bishops ' 



Templar Banner 



CHAPTER THE THIRD 

THE ROSICRUCIANS AMIDST ANCIENT MYSTERIES. 
THEIR TRACES DISCOVERABLE IN THE 
ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD 

The ' Collar of Esses ' is supposed always to be a part 
of the Order of the Garter. The coupled ' S.S.' mean 
the ' Sanctus Spiritus or ' Holy Spirit or the ' Third 
Person \ The ' Fleurs-de-Lis or ' Lisses or the 
' Lilies of the Field invariably appear in close con- 
nexion with St. John, or the ' Sanctus Spiritus ', and 
also with the Blessed Virgin Mary/ in all Christian 




Fig. 1 68 : Collar of Esses 



symbola or insignia. The Prince of Wales's triple 
plume appears to have the same mythic Egyptian 
and Babylonian origin, and to be substantially the 
same symbol as the 4 Fleur-de-Lis \ When arranged 
in threes, the ' Fleurs-de-Lis ' represent the triple 
powers of nature — the ' producer the ' means of 
production \ and 'that produced*. The 'Fleur-de- 
Lis ' is presented in a deep disguise in the ' Three 
Feathers which is the crest of the Prince of Wales ; 

263 



264 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



in this form the Fleur-de-Lis is intended to elude 
ordinary recognition. The reader will observe the 
hint of these significant 1 Lisses ' in the triple scrolls 
or ' Esses ' coiled around the bar in the reverse of the 



169 170 




171 

Figs. : 169, 17c, 171 



Gnostic gem, the ' Chnuphis Serpent \ elsewhere given. 
This amulet is a fine opalescent chalcedony, very 
convex on both sides. It is the figure of the ' Chnuphis 
Serpent ' rearing himself aloft in act to dart, crowned 
with the seven vowels, the cabalistic gift to Man in 
his Fall, signifying ' speech \ The reverse presents 
the triple ' S.S.S.' coiled around the ' Phallus \ 

In fig. 170 we have the Prince of Wales's Feathers, 
from the Tomb of Edward the Black Prince, in Canter- 
bury Cathedral. This badge presents the idea of the 
' Fleur-de-Lis \ ' Ich Dien ! ' — ' I serve ! 5 

Fig. 171 represents the Egyptian Triple Plumes, 
which are the same badge as the ' Fleur-de-Lis ' and 
the Prince of Wales's Feathers, meaning the ' Trinity \ 

Fig. 172 — also (ante) referred to as fig. 191 — is a 
Gnostic Gem. It represents the ' Chnuphis Serpent \ 
spoken of above. 

A famous inscription (Delphic E) was placed above 
the portal of the Temple at Delphi. This inscription 



THE TEMPLE AT DELPHI 265 

was a single letter, namely, the letter E, the name of 
which in Greek was E, which is the second person of 
the present of the indicative of the verb &/u i and 
signifies ' Thou art ' ; being as Plutarch has interpreted 
it, the salutation of the god by those who entered 




CHNU PHfS. 

Fig. 172 



the Temple. See Plutarch de E apud Delph. Lord 
Monboddo's Origin and Progress of Language (1774), 
vol. ii. p. 85, refers to this letter E. 

The Delphic ' E ' means the number ' Five or the 
half of the Cabalistic Zodiac, or the Five Ascending- 
Signs. This ' Delphic E ' is also the Seleucidan Anchor. 




Fig. 173 



It was adopted by the Gnostics to indicate the 1 Saviour *, 
and it is frequent in the talismans and amulets of the 
early Christians. It is one of the principal gems of 
the Gnostics, and is a cameo in flat relief. 

One of the charges against the Knights Templars 
was as follows : ' That they bound, or touched, the 
head of an idol with cords, wherewith they bound 
themselves about their shirts or next their skins ' 



266 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



(' Processus contra Templarios \ Dugd. Monast. Ang. 
vol. vi. part ii. pp. 844-846, etc.). There is something 
strange about these cords, cordons, ropes, belts, bands, 
baldrics (also in the term ' belted earls '). These are 
always male accessories ; except the 1 zones sashes, 
or girdles, worn as the mark of virgins, which cinctures 
may yet draw their symbolic meaning from this same 
' umbilicus ' in question. The reader will notice 
also the connexion of these ideas and the practice 
in the Roman race of the 1 Lupercal at the February 
Roman religious solemnities (February of the ' Fishes '). 
At these it was the custom of the runners to flog 
bystanders, particularly women, with thongs or cords ; 
which were probably intended to be the racers' own 
girdles. Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Calphurnia 
form a group illustrative of this meaning. Thus 
Shakespeare : 

Our elders say, 
The barren, touched in this holy chase, 
Shake off the sterile curse. 

— Julius Ccrsar, act i. sc. 2. 

Is this the origin of the custom of the people pelting 
or flogging each other at the Italian Carnivals ? It 
seems highly probable. The Carnivals occur at the 
same time as these Roman Lupercalia. 

Many early Norman mouldings exhibit, various 
examples of the cable. Thongs, ties, and network 
are seen to bind all the significant figures in the early 
English and Irish churches. Is there any connexion 
between these bonds, or ties, or lacings, with the 
1 cable-tow ' of the initiates among the Masons ? 
Perhaps the ' tow 9 in this ' cable-tow ' means the 
' Tau or stood for it originally. Reference may 
here be made to the snake which forms the girdle of 
the Gnostic ' Good Shepherd ' in the illustration 
later in our book (fig. 252). 



FIGURES OF THE 1 CENT A URI * 267 

The cable-mouldings in Gothic architecture are 
intended to carry an important meaning. They are 
found in the pointed or Christian architecture in 
continual close connexion with the triplicated zigzag, 
the Vandykes, or ' aquarii as we designate them, 
because all these architectural forms, which are hiero- 
glyphs, mean the feminine or ' Second Principle \ 
and express the sign of Aquarius, with its watery or 
lunar hints, its twin-fishes, and its Jonah-like anagrams 
of the ' Redeemer \ Hence the boatlike, elongated, 
peculiar form called the vesica piscis, which is the 
oblong shuttle-shaped frame continually set over 
doors and windows and elsewhere in Gothic churches, 
to contain effigies of the Saviour, or Virgin Mary, or 
groups from the New Testament in connexion with 
these Two Sacred Persons. A doorway in Barfreston 
Church, Kent, supplies an excellent example of the 
employment of this oblong figure ; which is also 
Babylonian, and means the female member as its 
starting-point. 

In a previous part of our book we give various 
figures of the prows or cutwater-heads of gondolas, 
in which we clearly show the origin of their peculiar 
form, which represents the securis, or ' sacrificial axe \ 
that crook originally expressed in the ' hook of Saturn \ 
The ' Bu-Centaur ' indicates the fabulous being, the 
bicorporate ' ox ' or * horse ' and ' Man ', as will be 
found by a separation of the syllables ' Bu-Centaur '. 
It is the name of the state-galley of the Doge of Venice, 
used on the occasion of his figurative stately marriage 
with the Adriatic, or espousal of the ' Virgin of the 
Sea', who was Cybele of the 'sacrificial hook'. 
The hatchet of Dis, the glaive, the halberd, 
the reaping-hook of Ceres, the crescent moon, the 
' Delphic E \ are all the same mystic figure. 
The prow of the gondola exhibits unmistakably the 



268 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



securis and fasces conjointly, or the axe of the sacrifice 
and the rods for the scourging of the victim first, if 
human, and afterwards for his burning — the rods 
being the firewood. Lictors have their name probably 
from 'Llec'. From this peculiar cutwater arose the 
Dragon-beak, the 1 Prow or ' Frow the figure- 
head and fiddle-head. They have all a feminine 
origin. 

Fig. 174 represents ' S. Johan ' (St. John), from an 
early woodcut of the Twelve Apostles. His right 
hand is raised in the act of the holy sign, whilst his 
left clasps the chalice of the ' S.S. \ or Sacrament 
of Wine ; in the cup is a salamander, signifying the 




Fig- 174 



'H.G'. This is St. John the Apostle, the author of 
the ' Apocalypse ' ; or the ' Sanctus Spiritus ', who 
baptizes in the mystic Eucharist with the ' Holy Ghost 
and with Fire ' . 

The following are the names of the angels of the 
planets, according to the Gnostics. At the beginning 
of all things is Jehovah (Sabaoth), Victory ; at the 
end, the 1 Old Serpent ' (Ophis). Between these are 
the Seraphim (Intelligences) and Cherubim (Bene- 
volences), and their representatives. Origen calls 
the Sun, Adonai ; the Moon, Iao ; Jupiter, Eloi ; 
Mars, Sabao \ Orai, Venus ; Astaphai, Mercury ; 



THE DRAGON Ay AN ENSIGN 



269 



Ildabaoth, Saturn. All this is Gnostic — highest mysti- 
cism therefore. 

The name Tarasque is given for the Dragon of a 
Northern Nation. (Oy. the f Hill of Tara ', etc. ?) 
Under the Roman Emperors, and under the Emperors 
of Byzantium, every cohort or centurion bore a dragon 
as its ensign (Modestus, De Vocabul. Rei Milit. ; Flav. 
Veget. De Re Militari, lib. ii. c. xiii. : Georget, Insig. 
Eur op., loc. cit.) Matthew of Westminster, speaking 
of the early battles of this country of England, says : 
' The King's place was between the Dragon and the 
Standard ' — ' Regius locus fuit inter draconem et 
standardum ' (Lower's Curiosities of Heraldry, p. 96). 
This is the undoubted origin of the ensign's 4 pair of 
colours ' in a battalion ; viz. the first colour, or 
' King's Colour whose place is to the right, is pro- 
perly the standard ; and the second colour, or the 
' regimental colour to which is assigned the left- 
hand, or female, or sinister place, is the ' Dragon \ 
The Dragon was supposed to conduct to victory, 
because its figure was a most potent charm. The 
standards and guidons of the cavalry follow the same 
magic rule. 

The planets are supposed by the astrologers and 
alchemists to exercise dominion more particularly in 
the order following, and to produce effects upon their 
own appropriate under-mentioned metals, on plane- 
tarily corresponding days. These are Sol, for gold, 
on Sunday ; Luna, for silver, on Monday ; Mars, 
for iron, on Tuesday ; Mercury, for quicksilver, on 
Wednesday ; Jupiter, for tin, on Thursday ; Venus, 
for copper, on Friday ; and Saturn, for lead, on 
Saturday (Lucas's Travels, p. 79 ; Count Bernard of 
Treviso). The emblematical sculptures, in which the 
whole enigma of the art of transmutation is supposed 
to be contained, are those over the fourth arch of the 



270 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

Cemetery of the'Tnnocents, at Paris, as you go through 
the great gate of St. Denis, on the right-hand side. 
They were placed there by Nicholas Flamel. 

The old traditions, from time immemorial, aver 
that it is neither proper for sailors nor for servants of 
the sea to wear beards. That they have never done 
so is true, except at those times when profound mythic 
meanings were not understood or were neglected. 
This smoothness of a sailor's face arises from the fact 
that the sea has always been mythologically feminine, 
and that sailors and men or followers of the sea are 
under the protection of the ' Queen of the Deep ', or 
the ' Virgin of the Sea ' . Hence the figure of Britannia, 
with her sceptre of the sea or trident, and not that of 
Neptune. 

The Virgin Mary, the ' Star of the Sea and 
Patroness of Sailors, rules and governs the ocean, and 
her colours are the ultramarine of the ' Deep ', and sea- 
green, when viewed in this phase of her divine char- 
acter. In all representations, ancient or modern, 
sailors have beardless faces, unless they belong to 
the reprobate and barbarian classes — such as pirates 
and outlaws, and men who have supposedly thrown 
off devotional observance, and fallen into the rough 
recusancy of mere nature. 

Fig. 175 is a very curious design from Sylvanus 
Morgan, an old herald. Above is the spade, signify- 
ing here the phallus ; and below is the distaff, or 
instrument of woman's work, meaning the answering 
member, or Yoni ; these are united by the snake. 
We here perceive the meaning of the rhymed chorus 
sung by Wat Tyler's mob : ' When Adam delved ' 
(with his spade), ' and Eve span ' (contributing her 
[producing] part of the work), ' where was then the 
Gentleman ? ' — or what, under these ignoble condi- 
tions, makes difference or degree ? It is supposed 



SIGNS OF THE PRIESTLY ORDER 271 



ihat Shakespeare plays upon this truth when he 
makes his clown in Hamlet observe ' They ' (i.e. Adam 
and Eve) ' were the first who ever bore arms/ By a 
reference to the foot of the figure, we shall see what 



these arms were, and discover male and female re- 
semblances in the shape of the man's ' escutcheon ' 
and the woman's diamond-shaped * lozenge '. As 
thus : a is the shield of arms, or ■ spade or ' spada 
or 1 male implement ', on man's own side, or dexter 
side ; b is the c lozenge or distaff, or ' article repre- 
sentative of woman's work ', on her proper side, or 
the left or sinister side. 

A chalice is, in general, the sign of the Priestly 
Order. The chalice on the tombstone of a knight, 
or over the door of a castle, is a sign of the Knights 
Templars, of whom St. John the Evangelist was the 
Patron Saint. The 4 cup ' was forbidden to the laity, 
and was only received by the Priests, in consequence 
of the decree of Pope Innocent III, a.d. 1215. It 
means the ' S.S. or Holy Spirit, to which we have 
frequently adverted. 

We have carefully inspected that which has been 
designated the crux antiquariorum, or the Puzzle of 




a. • Baron • 



Fig. 175. b. * Ferame ' 



272 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Antiquaries, namely, the famous Font, which is ot 
unknown and bewildering antiquity, in the nave ot 
Winchester Cathedral. Milner (a feeble narrator ana 
misty, unreliable historian), in his History of Win- 
chester, has the following superficial notice of this 
relic : 1 The most distinguished ornaments on the 
top are doves " breathing " ' (they are not 1 breathing 
they are drinking) * into phials surmounted with 
crosses fichee. And on the sides ' (the north side, he 
should say, which is faced wrongly, and ought pro- 
perly to front the east) 1 the doves are again depicted 
with a salamander , emblematic of fire ; in allusion to 
that passage of St. Matthew : "He shall baptize you 
with the Holy Ghost and with fire".' 

All the secrets of masonry are concealed in the 
Hebrew or Chaldee language. In the First Chapter 
of the Gospel according to St. John is contained the 
mythical outline of the Cabala, in its highest part. 

' Les anciens astrologues, dit le plus savant les 
Juifs ' (Maimonides), 1 ayant consacre a chaque planete, 
une couleur, un animal, un hois, un metal, un fruit, 
une plante, ils formaient de toutes ces choses une 
figure ou representation de Tastre, observant pour 
cet effet de choisir un instant approprie, un jour 
heureux, tel que la conjonction, ou tout autre aspect 
favorable. Par leurs ceremonies (magiques) ils 
croyaient pouvoir f aire passer dans ces figures ou idoles 
les influences des etres superieurs (leurs modeles). 
Cetaient ces idoles qu'adoraient les Kaldeens-sabeens. 
Les pr etres egyptiens, indiens, perses — on les croyait 
lier les dieux a leurs idoles, les faire descendre du ciel a 
leur gre. Ils menacent le soleil et la lune de reveler 
les secrets des mysteres.' — Eusebius Iamblicus, De 
Mysteriis Egyptiorum. 

The mystic emblems of the religions of India, 
China, Greece, and Rome are closely similar, and arc- 



MYSTIC EMBLEMS 



273 



set forth in the ornaments on the friezes of the temples 
of all those countries, explaining their general prin- 
ciples. 1 Your popular societies are an emanation 
from the lodges of the Freemasons, in like manner 
as these proceeded from the funeral pile of the Templars ' 
(' Castle ' of the Tuileries, year viii). Thus the ' egg- 
and-tongue moulding ' ( f egg and adder's tongue 
for the egg and the serpent were two of the emblems 
of the Egyptian and Greek mysteries), the griffin, 
the lion of St. Mark, the honeysuckle-and-lotus orna- 
ment, the convolutions and volutes, the horns as 
floriation springing from the lighted candelabra, the 
lotus and tori of Egypt, and the Greek ornaments 
and Roman Templar ornaments, are all related in 
their religious meanings. 

The names of the ' Three Kings or ' Shepherds 
who descried the Star of Annunciation in the East, 
are Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Caspar, or 
Gaspar, is the ' White One ' ; Melchior is the ' King 
of Light ' ; Balthasar, the 1 Lord of Treasures '. 
Balthasar, or Balthazar, is the Septuagint spelling of 
Belshazzar. 

Linga is the old name of an island near Iona, called 
the ' Dutchman's Cap '. (Qy. the Phrygian cap ? — 
also the first ' cocked hat ', and its recondite mean- 
ing ?) Gallus, or the Cock, is sacred to Mars, whose 
colour is red. In this connexion, and as bespeaking 
Hermes or Mercurius, the ( messenger of the dawn ', 
may have arisen the use of the ' cock ', as the emblem 
supposedly of the first descrier of the daily light from 
the tops of the steeples. It probably signifies the 
phallic myth. The grasshopper, dragon, arrow, and 
fox, as weathercocks, have undoubtedly a remote 
reference to the same idea of symbolizing the ' Prince 
of the Powers of the Air'. 

The form of the Pointed Arch reached the Orientals 



274 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



— as we see in their Temples — in the shape of the 
Phrygian and Median Bonnet (Lascelles, 1820). In 
these strange curves we have mingling the scarab, 
scorpion, 2), or ( — ). 

Cocks crow at day-dawn. Weathercocks turn to 
the wind, and invite the meteoric or elementary 
influences, the ' Powers of the Air \ The question as to 
the mystic side of all this is very interesting and 
curious. The fields of the air were supposed by the 
Rosicrucians to be filled with spirits. 

' Tous les Lamas portent la mitre, ou bonnet conique, 
qui etait Fembleme du soleil. Le Dalai-Lama, ou 
immense pretre de La, est ce que nos vieilles relations 
appelaient le pretre Jean, par Tabus du mot persan 
Djehdn, qui veut dire le monde. Ainsi le pretre 
Monde, le dieu Monde, se tient parfaitement/ — 
Volney, Ruines, p. 251. (Qy. Prester-John ? Qy. 
also this verbal connexion with ' Saint John as if 
Pretre John ?) In the old Norman-French Maistre is 
frequently met for Maitre. This Prestre, or Prester 
(Anglicized), or Pretre John, is probably no other than 
the Priest or High-Priest ' John otherwise Saint John, 
or the ' Saint-Esprit \ The recognition of the + in 
the Great Llama, Al-Ama, Ama, Anima (Soul, Spirit), 
Alma, El-Om, etc., meaning ' white is very curious. 
The antiquary Bryant is positively of opinion, from the 
very names of Columbkil and Iona, that this island 
Iona was anciently sacred to the Arkite divinities. 
The great asylum of the Northern Druids was the Island 
of Hu or Iona, Vs Colan, or Columba (Mythology and 
Rites of the British Druids, by Edward Davies, 1809, 

P- 479)- 

The glories around sacred persons and objects, which 
have straight-darting and curvilinear or wavy or ser- 
pentine rays alternately, are continual in theological 
or heraldic illustration ; which waved and straight 



TALMUDICAL MYSTERIES 



275 



rays alternately imply a deep mystery. They are 
constant symbols in the sacred nimbi, and are found 
upon sacramental cups ; they are set as the symbolical 
radii around reliquaries, and they appear as the mys- 
tic fiery circle of the Pyx. The straight spires and the 
brandished waved flames, or cherubic (or rather 
seraphic) gladii, or crooked swords guarding Paradise, 
imply two of the chief Christian mysteries. In the 
curved spires of flame, alternating with the aureole or 
ring of glory, there is possibly a remote hint of , or 
the ' Reconciler of the Worlds Visible and Invisible 
or ' S.S.\ 

To account for the universal deification of ' horns ' 
in architecture all over the world, as its symbolic 
keynote, as it were, which sigma has been transmitted 
into modern emblematic science, and incorporated 
unconsciously into the ornaments and elevated into 
the high places, over and over again, even in Christian 
buildings, an old Talmudist — Simeon Ben-Iochay by 
name — hazards the startling conjecture that this 
adoration arose originally in the supernatural light 
of knowledge of the old day, for the following reasons : 
the strange explanation which this mysterious writer 
gives is, that the bovine animals would have them- 
selves become men in their future generations, but 
for that divine arrest which interfered athwart as it 
were, and wasted the ruminative magnetic force ; 
which otherwise miraculously would have effected the 
transformation, by urging the powers of the brain from 
the radix of the rudimentary templar region into the 
enormous branching, tree-like, then improvised append- 
ages, where this possibility or extension of the nervous 
lines became spoiled and attenuate, solidified and 
degraded. Growth and development are assumed as 
taken from expansion and radiation off a nervous sen- 
sitive centre, by election or affinity governed by an 



276 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



invisible Power operating from without. It is to de- 
scend very deep into cabalistic and Talmudical mysteries 
to gain comprehension of an idea concerning the origin 
of this absurd worship of animal horns. 

The cabalist Simeon Ben-Iochay declares that it 
was in gratitude for this changed intention, and be- 




Fig. 176 : The Templar Banner, ' Beauseant ' 



cause the creature man became ' Man *, and not the 
bovine creatures — a ' catastrophe which might have 
happened, except for this diversion of the brain-power 
into horns ' (mere fable or dream as all this sounds !) — 
that the Egyptians set up the very ' horns ' to worship 
as the real thing — the depository or ' ark ' — into which 
the supernatural ' rescue ' was committed. Thus the 




Fig. 177 

Arches of the Temple 
Church, London, Sym- 
bol of the B.V.M. Also 
Delphic E, or Seleuci- 
dan Anchor 




Fig. 178 

Eight-pointed Buddhist 
Cross, ' Poor Soldiers' 
of the Temple ' 




Fig. 179 
Teutonic Knights 



horns of the animal — as the idol standing for the means, 
equally as another representative figure (the phallus), 
expressive of the mighty means to which man's exist- 
ence and multiplication was entrusted — were exalted 
for adoration, and placed as the trophies heroically 
\ won even out of the reluctance and hostility of nature \ 



SHAKESPEARE 



277 



and adored, not for themselves, but for that of which 
they spoke. 






Fig. 180 
Knights of Malta 



Fig. 181 

Cross Potent, Knights 
Hospitallers 



Fig. 182 

St. John. (Hospital of St. 
Cross, Winchester) 



Shakspeare has several covert allusions to the dig- 
nity of the myth of the ' Horns \ There is much 
more, probably, in these spoils of the chase — the 
branching horns or the antlers — than is usually sup- 
posed. They indicate infinitely greater things than 
when they are only seen placed aloft as 
sylvan trophies. The crest of his late Royal 
Highness Prince Albert displays the Runic 
horns, or the horns of the Northern mythic 
hero. They were always a mark of 
princely and of conquering eminence, and E ?otusEnrich' 
they are frequently observable in the VJ S Ss Lunar 
crests and blazon of the soldier-chiefs, the symbols 
Princes of Germany. They come from the original 




Fig. 183 





Fig. 184 

Temple of Apollinopolis Magna, 
in Upper Egypt 



Fig. 155 

Norman Capital, Door-shaft : Honeysuckle- 
and-Lotus Ornament, early example 



Taut, Tat, Thoth, Teut, whence ' Teuton ' and ' Teu- 
tonic \ These names derive from the mystic Mer- 



278 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



curius Trismegistus, ' Thrice-Master, Thrice Mistress ' 
— for this personage is double-sexed : * Phcebe above, 
Diana on earth, Hecate below.' 




Fig. 186 : Urceon Fig. 187 : Winged Disc 



Fig. 177, ante (from the arches of the Temple Church, 
London), is a symbol of the ' Blessed Virgin ' ; it is 
also the ' Delphic E or ' Seleucidan Anchor \ 

189 




190 

Fig. 188 : Ionic— Greek : ' Egg-and-tongue * Moulding (two of the Emblems 

of the mysteries) 
Fig. 189 : Grecian Moulding, expressing Religious Mysteries 
Fig. 190 : Corinthian— Temple of Vesta. Central Flower, probably the Egyptian 

Lotus 



194 195 196 




197 198 199 



Fig. rgi : Pantheon at Rome. Fig. 192 : Volute Fig. 193 : Corinthian 

Fig. 194 : Ionic Capital, Erecthamm at Athens Fig. 195 : Composite features 

Fig. 196 : Temple of Vesta, or the Sybil, at Tivoli ; Ram's Horns for Volutes 

F'g. 197 : Temple of Ellora and Bheems-Chlori (Mokundra Pass) 

Fig. 198 : India and Greece (similar capitals) 

Fig. 199 : Greek — Corinthian : Choragic Monument, Athens 



IONIC, CORINTHIAN, AND GOTHIC VOLVES 279 



The 'horns* of the Talmud account for the mythol- 
ogical Minotaur, the Bucentaur, Pan and Priapus 
the ' Sagittary ' or Centaur, the sign 1 Sagittarius \ 
and perhaps all bicorporate human and animal forms. 

In the group of figures above, showing the various 



classical forms of the volutes, or flourished horns, in 
the Corinthian, Ionic, and Composite capitals, a 
close affinity will be remarked to examples of capitals 
with horns or volutes from the temple of Ellora, in 
India, and other Indian and Persian temples : placed 
under, for comparison, in the illustration. 



Various mouldings, both Gothic and Classic, present 
shapes drawn from the astronomical sign 1 Aquarius \ 
These signs, or ciphers, are significant of the ' Sea ' 
and of the ' Moon \ Glyphs resembling ' fishes ' 
mean Iona, or Jonah. They are also symbols of the 
' Saviour \ when they occur amidst the relics left by 
the early Christians, and in forms of the first Christian 
centuries. 




Fig. 200 : Norman Capital : Foliated Ornament, resembling the 
Honeysuckle and Lotus 





Fig. 201 : CanterDury Cathedral : Volutes of the Corinthian form 
Fig. 202 : Canterbury Cathedral : Corinthian Scrolls or Horns 



Vertical Arch : Early Norman (Temple Church) 



CHAPTER THE FOURTH 

ROSICRUCIANISM IN STRANGE SYMBOLS 

In the following part of our book we supply, in a 
series of figures, the succession of changes to which 
the most ancient head-covering — in itself a significant 
hieroglyph — the Phrygian cap, the classic Mithraic 
cap, the sacrificial cap, or bonnet conique, all deducing 
from a common symbolical ancestor, became subject. 
The Mithraic or Phrygian cap is the origin of the 
priestly mitre in all faiths. It was worn by the priest 
in sacrifice. When worn by a male, it had its crest, 
comb, or point, set jutting forward ; when worn by 
a female, it bore the same prominent part of the cap 
in reverse, or on the nape of the neck, as in the instance 
of the Amazon's helmet, displayed in all old sculptures, 
or that of Pallas-Athene, as exhibited in the figures 
of Minerva. The peak, pic 3 or point, of caps or hats 
(the term ' cocked hat ' is a case in point) all refer to 
the same idea. This point had a sanctifying meaning 
afterwards attributed to it, when it was called the 
christa, crista, or crest, which signifies a triumphal top, 
or tuft. The * Grenadier Cap and the loose black 
Hussar Cap, derive remotely from the same sacred, 
Mithraic, or emblematical bonnet, or high pyramidal 
cap. It, in this instance, changes to black, because it is 

280 



THE PHRYGIAN CAP 



281 



devoted to the illustration of the ' fire-workers ' (grena- 
diers), who, among modern military, succeed the Vulcan- 
ists, Cyclopes, classic ' smiths ', or servants of Vulcan, 
or Mulciber, the artful worker among the metals in the 
fire, or amidst the forces of nature. This idea will be 
found by a reference to the high cap among the Per- 
sians, or Fire- Worshippers • and to the black cap among 
the Bohemians and in the East. All travellers in 
Eastern lands will remember that the tops of the 
minarets reminded them of the high-pointed black 
caps of the Persians. 

The Phrygian Cap is a most recondite antiquarian 
form ; the symbol comes from the highest antiquity. 
It is displayed on the head of the figure sacrificing in 
the celebrated sculpture, called the ( Mithraic Sacri- 
fice ' (or the Mythical Sacrifice), in the British Museum. 
This loose cap, with the point protruded, gives the 
original form from which all helmets or defensive head- 
pieces, whether Greek or Barbarian, deduce. As a 
Phrygian Cap, or Symbolizing Cap, it is always san- 
guine in its colour. It then stands as the ' Cap of 
Liberty ', a revolutionary form ; also, in another 
way, it is even a civic or incorporated badge. It is 
always masculine in its meaning. It marks the ' needle ' 
of the obelisk, the crown or tip of the phallus, whether 
* human ' or representative. It has its origin in the 
rite of circumcision — unaccountable as are both the 
symbol and the rite. 

The real meaning of the bonnet rouge, or ■ cap of 
liberty has been involved from time immemorial 
in deep obscurity, notwithstanding that it has always 
been regarded as a most important hieroglyph or figure. 
It signifies the supernatural simultaneous ' sacrifice ' 
and ' triumph \ It has descended from the time of 
Abraham, and it is supposed to emblem the strange 
mythic rite of the ' circumcisio preputii \ The loose 



282 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Phrygian bonnet, bonnet conique, or ' cap of liberty ' 
may be accepted as figuring, or standing for, that de- 
tached integument or husk, separated from a certain 
point or knob, which has various names in different 
languages, and which supplies the central idea of this 
sacrificial rite — the spoil or refuse of which (absurd and 
unpleasant as it may seem) is borne aloft at once as a 
' trophy ' and as the 4 cap of liberty \ It is now a 
magic sign, and becomes a talisman of supposedly inex- 
pressible power — from what particular dark reason it 
would be difficult to say. The whole is a sign of 
( initiation and of baptism of a peculiar kind. The 
Phrygian cap, ever after this first inauguration, has 
stood as the sign of the ' Enlightened ' . The heroic 
figures in most Gnostic Gems, w T hich we give in our 
illustrations, have caps of this kind. The sacrificer 
in the sculptured group of the ' Mithraic Sacrifice 
among the marbles in the British Museum, has a Phry- 
gian cap on his head, whilst in the act of striking the 
Bull with the poniard — meaning the office of the im- 
molating priest. The bonnet conique is the mitre of 
the Doge of Venice. 

Besides the bonnet rouge, the Pope's mitre — nay, all 
mitres or conical head-coverings — have their name 
from the terms ' Mithradic or ' Mithraic \ The origin 
of this whole class of names is Mittra, or Mithra. The 
cap of the grenadier, the shape of which is alike all 
over Europe, is related to the Tartar lambskin caps, 
which are dyed black ; and it is black also from its 
association with Vulcan and the ' Fire-Worshippers 1 
(Smiths). The Scotch Glengarry cap will prove on 
examination to be only a ' cocked • Phrygian. All the 
black conical caps, and the meaning of this strange 
symbol, came from the East. The loose black fur 
caps derive from the Tartars. 

The ' Cap of Liberty ' [Bonnet Rouge), the Crista or 



MYTHIC HEAD-COVERS 



283 



Crest (Male), and the Female (Amazon) helmet, all 
mean the same idea ; in the instance of the female 




Fig. 203 Fig. 204 Fig. 205 Fig. 206 

Phrygian Cap Phrygian Cap Peak, pic, or cock Phrygian Cap 
(Male) ('cocked') (Classic Shepherds) 

crest, the knob is, however, depressed — as shown in 
the figures next. 

The forms of Grenadier caps, and of those worn by 
Pioneers also, are those of the head-covers of the 
Fire-workers or Fire-raisers (Vulcanists) of an army. 

All the black fur caps — militarily called busbies — 



207 208 




209 2iU 

Fig. 207 : Pallas-Athene Fig. 208 : Atnene (Minerva) 
Fig. 209: J itra, Persia Fig. 210: Persia 

are Bohemian, Ishmaelitish, heathen, irregular ; their 
origin lies in the magic East. 

Few would suspect the uniform of the Hussars to 
have had a religious origin ; both the flaps which de- 
pend from their bushy fur caps, and the loose jacket 
or dolman which hangs from their left shoulder, are 
mythic. ' The long triangular flaps, which hang down 
like a jelly-bag, consist in a double slip of cloth, which, 



284 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



when necessary, folds round the soldier's face on each 
side, and forms a comfortable night-cap. In our 
service, one single slip is left to fly.' — Sir Walter Scott 
to T. Crofton Croker, 7th July 1827. (Qy. whether 



Fig. 211 Fig. 212 Fig. 213 

Motley or Scaramouch : Knight's head-gear, Cap of Maintenance 

' Bonnet Conique,' with ' torse ' 

cloven and set about 
with bells 

the above-named double fly of the Hussar Cap be not 
the dependent ears or horns of the original Motley ?) 
The Hussars wear the original fur cap of Tubal-Cain, 
or the Smiths, or 1 Artful Workers in Nature \ The 

If 

Fig. 216 

Double Mitre — Horns 
of the Jester or Buf- 
foon, set about with 
bells or jingles 

name Hussar is borrowed from the Oriental exclama- 
tion to (or invocation of) ' Al huza ', ' Al-husa ', or 
Venus, or Aphrodite — the original patroness of these 
Ishmaelitish irregular light troops. The dolman or 

{k - 

Fig. 217 
Fool's Cap. This shape has 
Egyptian indications 

pelisse, properly worn on the left shoulder of the Hus- 
sar, has its signification and origin in the following act 
related in Scripture, which refers to a certain Rosicru- 
cian myth : ' Shem and Japheth took a garment ' 






Fig. 214 

Tartar or Cossack Fur 
Cap, with double 
pendants 



Fig. 215 

Mediaeval Cap 
of Estate 




Fig. 218 

Bulgarian ; also worn by 
the Pandours 




Fig. 219 

Hussar and 
Cossack 



ISHM A ELITISH IRREGULAR LIGHT-TROOPS 285 



(a cover or extra piece of clothing), ' and laid it upon 
both their shoulders ' (on the left shoulder of each), 
' and went backward , and covered their father Noah/ 
It is astonishing how successfully this mythic act, 
with its original strange Rosicrucian meaning, should 
have been hidden away in this apparently little cor- 




Fig. 220 Fig. 221 Fig. 222 

Hussar Conical Cap Artillery Sapeur, Pioneer 

responding, trivial fact, of the wearing of the Hussar 
loose cloak or pelisse (pallium or pall) on the left or 
sinister shoulder ; which is the shoulder nearest to 
the woman : because the Talmudists say that Man was 
made from the left hand. 




Fig. 223 Fig. 224 Fig. 225 



Fur Cap of the Sword-bearer Turkish Judge, in imitation of the 

(mythic gladius) of the City Egyptian Klaft : the black 

of London Coif, placed on the sen- 

sorium, is the mark or 
' brand ' of Isis (Saturn) 

Regarding the Templar insignia, we may make the 
following remarks. The famous flag, or ' Beauseant ', 
was their distinguishing symbol. Beauseant — that 
is to say, in the Gallic tongue, Bien-seant, because 
they are fair and honourable to the friends of Christ, 
but black and terrible to His enemies : ' Vexillum 
bipartitum, ex Albo et Nigro, quod nominant " Beau- 
seant id est, Gallica lingua, " Bien-seant eo quod 
Christi amices candidi sunt et benigni, inimices vero 
terribiles atque nigri ' (Jac. de Vitr. Hist. Hierosol. 
apud Gesta Dei, cap. lxv). 



286 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



The Cardinal de Vitry is totally uninformed as to 
the meaning and purpose indicated in this mysterious 
banner. Its black and white was originally derived 
from the Egyptian sacred ' black and white and it 
conveys the same significant meanings. 

Now, in the heraldic sense — as we shall soon see — 
there is no colour white. Argent is the silver of the 
moon's light, the light of the ' woman ' ; or it is light 
generally, in opposition to darkness, which is the 
absence of all colour. White is the synthesis and 
identity of all the colours — in other words, it is light. 
Thus white is blazoned, in the correct heraldic sense, 
as also in reference to its humid, feminine origin (for, 
as the old heralds say, ' light was begotten of darkness 
and its ' type, product, and representative, woman, 
also '), as the melancholy or silver light of the moon, 
1 Argent ' ; also, in the higher heraldic grade, c Pearl 
as signifying tears ; lastly, ' Luna ', whose figure or 
mark is the crescent ), or ^ ; which is either the 
new moon (or the moon of hope), or the moon of the 
Moslem (or ' horned moon resting on her back '). 
Black (or sable, sab., s abb at, Sat., Saturn) is the absence 
of light, and is blazoned ' sable diamond (carbon, 
or the densest of matter), ' without form and void ', 
but cradle of possibilities, 1 end ' being taken as synony- 
mous with ' beginning \ It is sab., or Saturn, whose 
mark is h } and who is both masculine and feminine — 
sex being indifferent to this ' Divine Abstraction, 
whose face is masked in Darkness/ 

Lykos — ' wolf ', lyke — ' light ' ; whence comes Lux 
(Volney, ist English edition, 1792, p. 378). 1 Je ' and 
' V ' are of Tartar origin. It is probable that St. 
John's College at Cambridge is the Domus Temph 
of the Round Church of the Templars there. The 
present St. John's is only of modern foundation. 
There is annexed to, or connected with, this church 



JEWEL OF THE ROSICRUCIANS 287 



an almshouse called ' Bede's House the name of which 
has puzzled all the antiquaries. There is little doubt 
that this was the original Domus Templi, the house 
of Buddha, corrupted into Bede, and meaning 1 wis- 
dom '. 

A Discourse concerning the Tartars, proving (in all 
probability) that they are the Israelites, or Ten Tribes ; 
which, being taken captive by Salmaneser, were trans- 
planted into Media. By Giles Fletcher, Doctor of 
Both Laws, and sometime Ambassador from Elizabeth, 
Queen of England, to the Emperor of Russia. This was 
found in Sir Francis Nethersole's study after his death 
(Memoirs of the Life of William Whiston, 1749). 

Mr. Cavendish, an eminent chemist, ' had reason to 
be persuaded that the very water itself consisted solely 
of inflammable air united to dephlogisticated air/ 
This last conclusion has since been strengthened very 
much by some subsequent experiments of Dr. Priest- 
ley's (see p. 299 of Morsels of Criticism, tending to 
illustrate some few passages in the Holy Scriptures 
upon Philosophical Principles. 2d. edition, 2 vols. 
8vo. London : J. Davis, Chancery Lane, 1800). 

The jewel of the Rossi-crucians (Rosicrucians) is 
formed of a transparent red stone, with a red cross 
on one side, and a red rose on the other — thus, it is 
a crucified rose. The Rossi — or Rosy — crucians' ideas 
concerning this emblematical red cross and red rose 
probably came from the fable of Adonis — who was the 
sun whom we have seen so often crucified — being 
changed into a red rose by Venus (see Drummond's 
Origines, vol iii. p. 121). Rus (which is Ras in 
Chaldee) in Irish signifies ' tree ', 4 knowledge ', 
'science', magic', 'power'. This is the Hebrew 
R — as. Hence the Persian Rustan (Val. Col. Hib. 
vol. iv. pt. i. p. 84). ' The ancient Sardica, in lat. 
40 50', is now called " Sophia " ' ; the ancient Aqui- 



288 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



neum, Buda, or Buddha. These were, I believe, old 
names restored ' (vide D'Anville's Atlas). The society 
bearing the name of the Rossicrucians (or Rosicrux- 
ians) is closely allied with the Templars. Their em- 
blem is a monogram or jewel ; or, as malicious and 
bigoted adversaries w T ould say, their ' object of adora- 
tion ' is a ' red rose on a cross ' Thus : 



When it can be done, it is surrounded with a glory, 
and placed on a Calvary. This is the Naurutz, Natsir, 
or Rose of Isuren, of Tamul, or Sharon, or the Water- 
Rose, the Lily Padma, Pema, Lotus i crucified ' for 
the salvation of man — crucified in the heavens at the 
Vernal Equinox. It is celebrated at that time by 
the Persians in what they call their Nou-Rose, i.e. 
Neros, or Naurutz (Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. 
ii. p. 406). The Tudor Rose, or Rose- en- Soldi (the 
Rose of the Order of the Garter), is the Rosicrucian 
1 Red Rose ', crucified, with its rays of glory, or golden 
sunbeams, or mythical thorns, issnant from its white, 
immaculate ' centre-point \ or ' lily-point ' — all which 
have further occult meanings lying hidden in theurgic 
mysticism. All these are spoken in the famous ' Round 
Table ' of the Prince (and Origin) of Christian knight- 
hood, King Arthur. His table is now hanging on the 
wall, dusty and neglected, over the 1 King's Seat oi 
Bench ' in the Court-House on the Castle Hill of our 
ancient Winchester. But upon this abstruse subject of 




Fig. 226 



EDWARD THE FIRST AND RAYMOND LVLLY 289 

the 1 Round Table ' we have spoken more fully in 
another place. See Elias Ashmole. 

Pope John XIV, about the year 970, issued a Bull 
for the baptizing of bells ' To cleanse the air of devils ' ; 
with which it was imagined to be full in the time of 
storms or of public commotion. To this end, the 
kettledrums of the Lacedaemonians were also supposed 
to be used on all extraordinarily harmful occasions. 
Pagodas are uprights and obelisks, with the same 
meaning as other steeples, and their angles are set about 
with bells, which are agitated in the wind, and are 
supposed to exercise the same power of driving off 
evil spirits. Vesper bells secure spiritual serenity. 
The bells of the churches are tolled in thunderstorms 
still, in some parishes in England, supposedly to 
disperse the clouds, and to open their rifts for the 
returning sunshine. 

Edward the First of England was in every way 
an extraordinary man. There are certain reasons for 
supposing that he was really initiated in Eastern 
occult ideas. It is to be remembered that he made 
the Crusade to Palestine. He invited to England, 
Guido dalla Colonna, the author of the Troy-book 
Tale of Troy ; and he also invited Raymond Lully 
into his kingdom. Raymond Lully is affirmed to 
have supplied to Edward six millions of money, to 
enable him to carry on war against the Turks. The 
origin of the rose-nobles is from the Rosicrucians. 

No. 1. Catherine-wheel window — 12 columns. 
Query, the 12 signs, with the Rose, Disc, or Lotus, 
in the centre ? From a Saracenic fountain near the 
Council-House, Jerusalem. This fountain seems to 
be built of fragments ; the proof of which is that this 
inscribed stone (No. 2) is placed over half the discus. 
The whole structure, though Oriental or Saracenic, 
abounds with Gothic or pointed features. Such are 

u 



290 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the frets, the spandrel-work, the hood-moulding, etc. 

No. 3. Query, ' Aquarii ' ? The Aquarii always 
indicate the Lunar element, or the female. The 
Baptisteries dedicated to St. John, or to the S.S., 
are eight-sided. The Baptisteria in Italy follow the 
same emblematical rule. The sections into which the 
Order of the Knights of Malta were divided were 
eight, answering to the eight points of the cross, which 
was their emblem. The Order was composed of eight 
nations, whereof the English, which was one, disap- 
peared at the Reformation. 

The colours of the monastic knightly orders were the 
following : The Teutonic Knights wore white, with 
the eight-pointed black cross ; the Knights of Malta 
wore black, with the eight-pointed white cross. The 




Fig. 227 

foregoing obtained their Black and White from the 
Egyptians. The Knights Templars, or Red-Cross 
Knights, wore white, with the eight-pointed Bhuddist 
red cross displayed on their mantles. The Guardian 
of the Temple Chapel was called ' Custos CapellcB, 
(Capellc, a ' kid ' star ' she-goat also ' chapel '). 
ft Attila, surnamed ' the Scourge of God is represented 
as having worn a ' Teraply \ or head, on his breast — 



ANT10CHUS EPIPHANES 



291 



a snaky-haired head, which purported to be that of 
Nimrod, whom he claimed as his great progenitor. 
This same Medusa-like head was an object of adorat- 
ion to the heretical followers of Marcion, and was the 
Palladium set up by Antiochus Epiphanes, at Antioch, 
though it has been called the visage of Charon. This 
Charon may be ' Dis ' — or the ' Severe \ or * Dark 
Deity. 

The human head is a magnet, with a natural electric 
circle moving in the path of the sun. The sign of this 



ring is serpentine, and is 2 ; each man being considered 
—as far as his head is concerned — as magnetic. The 
positive pole of the magnet is the os frontis, sinciput, 
os sublime. The negative pole is the occiput. 

Tonsure of the head is considered as a sacred ob- 
servance. Hair (in se) is barbarous, and is the mark 
and investiture of the beasts. The Cabalists abstained 
from wine and marriage. Tonsure means 1 the sun's 
disc ' in the East. ■ Les Arabes, dit Herodote, lib. 
hi. se rasent la tete en rond et autour des tempes, 
ainsi que se rasait, disent-ils, Bacchus ' (Volney, Ruines, 
p. 265). 1 La touffe qui conservent les musulmans 
est encore prise du soleil, qui, chez les Egyptiens, etait 
peint, au solstice d'hiver, n'ayant plus qu'un cheveu sur 
la tete' ' Les etoiles de la deesse de Syrie et de la Diane, 




Fig. 22S : Hindoo Pagoda at Tanjore 



2Q2 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



d'Ephese, d'ou derivent celles des pretres, portent les 
douze animaux du zodiaque.' 

Fig. 230, Chapter -Houses of York Cathedral and of 
Salisbury Cathedral. Most of the Chapter-Houses 
of the Cathedrals are eight-sided. In this they imitate 
the eight-sided or 1 Bhuddist ' cross of the Templars. 
This is the crown, cap, capital, chapiter, tabernacle, 
mythic domus templi, or domus Dei. They are miniat- 
ure, mystical Round Churches, or * Tors \ The 



Chapter-Houses oblong in shape are imitative of the 
\ Ark ' of the Mosaical Covenant. All the Basilicas 
are of this figure. The symbol is a parallelogram, or 
an oblong, when the shape adopted is that of the 
temples. It then is the navis, ' nave or ship — which 
is the * Argo \ 

' Les Chinois l'adorent dans Fot. La langue chin- 
oise n'ayant ni le B ni le D y ce peuple a prononce 
Fot ce que les Indiens et les Perses prononcent Bot, 
Bot, Bod, Bodd, ou Boudd — par ou bref Fot, au 
Pegou, est devenu Fota et Fta/ Query, Pthah 
(Vulcan) of the Egyptians, and the Teutonic F's in 
' Friga ' (the Runic Venus), ' Ffriga ' — ' Friday ' ? 




Fig. 230 



THE MO LIC DIG AM MA 



293 



B — F, P — F, are interchangeable letters (see Arabic 
and Sanscrit vocabularies). 

The iEolic Digamma is the crux of philologists. The 
ancients pronounced every word which began with a 
vowel with an aspirate, which had the sound of our w 3 



fflexcro cosmos / \ Dragon's Hecci 

Pb 




Mi &rc cosmos, 



Drag dp! 5 Tai L 



Fig. 231 

and was often expressed by /3 or v y and also 7. For this 
the figure of a double T } or J" , was invented, whence 
the name Digamma ; which was called .ZEolic, because 
the iEolians, of all the tribes, retained the greatest 
traces of the original language. Thus, the iEoiians 
wrote or pronounced po/w^ fe\ea J velia. The 
Latin language was derived from the ^Eolic dialect, 
and naturally adopted the Digamma, which it generally 



Fylfot : Digamma (Dr. Valpy's crest) 
A notable Rosicrucian, Cabalistic, and Masonic emblem 

expressed by V. These significant, mysterious sounds 
and characters — V, W, B } and F — are reputed to be 
the key of the Lunar, or Feminine, Apotheosis. The 
symbol (or that meant in the symbol) is the keynote, as 
it were, of all Grecian architecture and art ; which is 



2Q4 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

all beauty, refinement, and elegance, with power at the 
highest. 

This is the foundation mark of the famous symbols- — 

Teutonic (Fourfold Mysticism) (Greek forms) 

This latter double Cross (in ascension) is indica- 
tive of the Left-Hand Greek forms, or of the Eastern 
Church. 



BPHTUU 
PUO POMR-I 
N A F\ P H 



CHAPTER THE FIFTH 



CONNEXION BETWEEN THE TEMPLARS AND 
GNOSTICISM 

The branch sect of the Gnostics, called Basilideans, 
who were properly Ophites, arose in the second cen- 
tury, deriving their name from Basilides, the chief 
of the Egyptian Gnostics. They taught that in the 
beginning there were Seven Beings, or iEons, of a 
most excellent nature ; in whom we recognize the 
cabalistic Seven Spirits before the Throne. Two of 
these first .ZEons, called Dyamis and Sophia — that is 
' Power ' and ' Wisdom ' — engendered the angels of 
the highest order. The name of Abraxas, the Deity 
of the Gnostics, is made up of the numerical letters 
representing the total 365 — the aggregate of days of 
the solar year. The ' manifestation ' of Abraxas 
rests in his Son, Nus (knowledge), or Christ, the chief 
of the iEons, who descended to earth and assumed 
the form of ' Man ' ; was baptized, and crucified in 
appearance (Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. pp. 181-4). 
The Manichaeans, who deny the reality of the Cruci- 
fixion of the Son of God, and whose tenets concern- 
ing the Saviour Jesus are peculiar, derive their name 
from Manes, or Mani ; and their doctrine was first 
disseminated in Persia about the year 270. They 
speak mysteriously of the Anima Mundi, or ' Hyle ' ; 
they call this principle a deity, and agree with the 
Rosicrucians in asserting that it is a power presenting 
itself at once in reverse to the world and to the heavens, 

in as far as that, while it is dark to the one, it is light 

395 



2gS 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



to the other ; and contrariwise. The Gnostic hier- 
archy consisted of an arch-priest or patriarch, twelve 
masters, and seventy-two leaders or bishops. The 
Gnostics called Matter, or Body, ■ evil and ' dark- 
ness and seemed uncertain whether, in its operat- 
ions, it were active or passive. It was believed by 
these sectaries that there were successive emanations 
of intelligent beings — these were the lEons {alwvei) i 
producing the various phases in creation. In this 
way, there arose in time a mighty being, the Demi- 
urge, who set to work on the inert matter then exist- 
ing, and out of it formed the world. The reconcile- 
ment, or restoration, is to the Bhuddistic pleroma, or 
fullness of light. It is absorption into ' annihilation \ 
or into victory, oblivious of the vexations of 'life'. 
Here, in this fullness of light — or independence of all 
worlds, or of life, according to Man's ideas — the 
Supreme God has His habitation : but it is not 
1 nothingness \ according to our ideas of nothing ; 
it is so only because it has not anything in it com- 
prehensible. The Alexandrian Gnostics inclined to 
the opinion that Matter was inert, or passive ; the 
Syrian Gnostics, on the contrary, held that it was 
active. Valentinus came from Alexandria to Rome 
about a.d. 140. St. Augustine fell under the Gnostic 
influence, and retained their beliefs from his. twentieth 
to his twenty-ninth year — viz., from 374 to 383 A.D. 
Their books have for titles : the Mysteries, the Chap- 
ters or Heads, the Gospel, and the Treasure. Refer 
to Beausobre, Walch, Fuesslin, and Hahn. 

The Gnostics held that Christ's teaching was not 
fully understood even by His disciples ; and there- 
fore He promised to send, in due time, a still greater 
Apostle, the Paraclete, who should effectually separate 
truth from falsehood. This Paraclete appeared in Mani. 

The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral displays 



SYMBOLS IN THE TEMPLE CHURCH 297 

accurately the mythic idea of the union of the Male 
and Female Principles in the parallel double towers, 
which are uniform. 

The claims for the real reading of the Egyptian 
hieroglyphics are distinct and unhesitating, as put 
forward by the Egyptologists ; who, if industry could 
have succeeded, certainly would have realized their 
desire. But it is extremely doubtful whether, after 
all, they are not very widely astray. The late Sir 
George Cornewall Lewis, in his History of Ancient 
Astronomy, has disposed conclusively of the assumed 
correctness of most of these interpretations. The 
Egyptologists, the principal of whom are Champollion, 
Rawlinson, Dean, Milman, Sir George Lewis (per- 
haps the best critic), Professor Wilson, Sir Gardner 
Wilkinson, Dr. Cureton, Dr. Hincks, M. Oppert, Mr. 
Fox Talbot, with a large amount of ingenious and 
very plausible research and conjecture, have not truly 
touched or appreciated these enigmas. They yet 
remain, baffling the curiosity of the moderns ; and 
they are likely to preserve their real mysteries unread 
as long as the stones of the Pyramids and the remem- 
brance of the Sphinx — if not her visible figure — 
themselves endure. We believe that there is no 
adequate mystical comprehension among modern 
decipherers to read the hopeless secrets — purposely 
evading discovery — which lie locked in the hiero- 
glyphics : the most successful readings are probably 
guesses only, founded on readily accepted likeness 
and likeliness. 

The Temple Church, London, presents many mythic 
figures which have a Rosicrucian expression. In 
the spandrels of the arches of the long church, besides 
the ' Beauseant which is repeated in many places, 
there are the armorial figures following : ' Argent, 
on a cross gules, the Agnus Dei, or Paschal Lamb, 



298 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



or ' ; ' Gules, the Agnus Dei, displaying over the 
right shoulder the standard of the Temple ; or, a 
banner, triple cloven, bearing a cross gules ' ; 1 Azure, 
a cross prolonged, potent, issuant out of the crescent 
moon argent, horns upwards ; on either side of the 
cross, a star or \ This latter figure signifies the 
Virgin Mary, and displays the cross as rising like the 
pole, or mast of a ship (argha), out of the midst of 
the crescent moon, or navis biprora, curved at both 
ends ; ' azure, semee of estoiles, or '. The staff of 
the Grand Master of the Templars displayed a curved 
cross of four splays, or blades, red upon white. The 
eight-pointed red Bhuddist cross was also one of the 
Templar ensigns. The temple arches abound with 
brandished estoiles , or stars, with wavy or crooked 
flames. The altar at the east end of the Temple 
Church has a cross flour ie, with lower limb prolonged 
or, on a field of estoiles, wavy ; to the right is the 
Decalogue, surmounted by the initials, A. Q. (Alpha 
and Omega) ; on the left are ' the monograms of the 
Saviour, I OX C ; beneath, is the Lord's Prayer. 
The whole altar displays feminine colours and emblems, 
the Temple Church being dedicated to the Virgin 
Maria. The winged horse, or Pegasus, argent, in a 
field gules, is a badge of the Templars. The tombs 
of the Templars, disposed around the circular church 
in London, are of that early Norman shape called dos 
d'ane ; their tops are triangular ; the ridge-mould- 
ing passes through the temples and out of the mouth 
of a mask at the upper end, and issues out of the 
horned skull, apparently, of some purposely trodden 
creature. The head at the top is shown in the ' honour- 
point ' of the cover of the tomb. There is an amount 
of unsuspected meaning in every curve of these 
Templar tombs ; but it would at present too much 
occupy us to more fully explain. 



SYMBOLS IN THE TEMPLE CHURCH 299 



The crook part of a Bishop's staff shows the un- 
dulating curve of S.S. issuing out of the foliations : 
meaning the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is particul- 
arly observable in the statue of William of Wyke- 



Fig. 232 

Signature or Talisman 
of the Jain a Kings: 
also Gnostic 





Fig. 23* 
Talsiman : the 
Four Elements 



A 

Fig. 235 

Wizard's Foot 
Pent alpha 



ham, the founder, at St. Mary's College, Winchester; 
who, holding the spiritual crook in the left hand, gives 

A 
T 



Alpha L 
Omega U 
Ch X 



Fig. 236 



— Fer- 

Lux \ Bringer 

— Fero. 



Lucifer : the Day-star, 
Morning Star 



Lucifera 
Diana 



an epithet of 



the usual benediction of the two extended fingers 
with his right. The crook is the Shepherd Crook of 
the ' Second Person and of the 1 Holy Spirit \ 




Fig. 237 
Pillars of Seth 



Fig. 238 

^i) Osiris, Bhudd (2) Thus in India 

(3) Hermes. Thus in Egypt 

(4) Bel or Baal. Thus in Britain 
(All the above are different versions of the Phallus, with its meanings) 



We now give a series of Gnostic Talismans, from 
originals. The reader is requested to refer to our 
numerous figures and symbols from the Temple Church, 



3oo 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



London, and to the insignia of the Templars, as 
displayed in all countries, for hints as to their con- 
nexion with the mysterious beliefs constituting that 
which is called Gnosticism. 

Concerning the Pillars of Seth (see fig. 237), Josephus 





rj a w 

Fig. 239 

asserts that No. 1 was existent in his time. It is a 
Cabalistic tradition that No. 2 was destroyed in the 
Deluge. Notice also their resemblance to the Phallus 
or Phallos, Lingam or Lingham. Lithoi = Ll-th-oi. 





Fig. 241 
Jacinth : Gnostic Gem 



Fig. 242 
Mithraic Sacrifice 



Gnostic 



Figs. 239-240, represent, under different aspects, 
the armed Abraxas, the chief deity of the Gnostics. 
In fig. 239 he is displayed with characteristics of 
Apollo, or the Sun rising in the East, in the quadriga 
or four-horsed chariot. Fig. 240 : 4 Abraxas brand- 
ishing his whip, as if chasing away the evil genii. 



GNOSTIC MYSTERIES 301 

On his shield, the titles I*. IAQ. Neat work. Green 
jasper 9 (The Gnostics, p. 201). 

The ' UrcBon \ or winged solar disc, or egg, from 
which issue, on reversed sides, the two emblematical 



* " Fig. 243 

Egyptian Apis, or Golden Calf 

asps, has certain characteristics which ally it with 
the ' ScarabcBus \ Both Uraeon and Scarabaeus are 
symbols continual on the fronts of the Egyptian 
temples, and they are principally placed over the 
portals ; they are talismans or charms. 

Fig. 248 : 4 Osiris or the ' Old Man ' ; a termina] 




Fig. 244 

Cancer grasping with One Claw at the Lunar Crescent : Gnostic Gem 

figure. At the foot, the celestial globe and masonic 
pentagon, or 1 Solomon's Seal \ The field is occu- 
pied by symbols and letters, seemingly Hebrew. The 
whole design is mediaeval, hardly a production of 
even the lowest times of the Empire. This is one of 
the pieces most evidently bespeaking a ' Rosicrucian 9 
origin. Deeply cut in a coarse-grained green jasper 
(Gnostics, p. 213). 

Fig. 249 : Anubis walking ; in each hand, a long 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



Egyptian sceptre terminating in a ball ; in the field, 
the sun and moon (adjuncts marking the astrolog- 
ical character of this talisman, which therefore must 
be ascribed to the class of Abraxoids). The whole 
enclosed in a sunken circle, Rev. MIXAHA, between 
four stars. The Cabalists make Michael the Angel 
of the Sun. Plasma of bad quality (The Gnostics, 
p. 200). 

Fig. 250 : This object is the ' Chnuphis Serpent', 




Fig. 245 : Uraeon Fig. 246 : Uraeon Fig. 247 : Uraeus 



to which frequent reference has been made in our 
book. The 1 Serpent ' is raising itself in act to give 
the mythic dart. On its head is the crown of seven 
points or vowels. The second amulet presents the 
name of the Gnostic ' Unknown Angel \ with the 
four stars in the angles. This is Michael or the 




Fig. 248 



' Saviour \ the 1 Chief of the Mons \ seventy-two 
in number, and composed of six times twelve ; there 
being three ' double decades ', for the night and for 
the day, in each lunar period or sign of the zodiac ; 
each of which consists of thirty degrees. In another 
aspect, this symbol stands for the Gnostic Chief Deity 
Abraxas, the letters of whose name make up the 
number of days of the solar circle. 



PHALLIC IDOLS 



303 



The following group of figures gives some of the 
significant hieroglyphs from the Egyptian sculptures. 
(a) Plume, 'Spiritual Power', (b) Jackal, 'Priest- 
hood', (c) Tau, Fleur-de-Lis, Crux-Ansata. (d) 




Fig. 249 Fig. 250 



Placenta, 1 Religious Solemnities \ (e) Horns, 
'Powder'. (J) Anser, 'Prudence'. (g) 'Nonage'. 
Qi) Asp, ' Sovereignty '. (£) Haw r k, 1 Sagacity '. The 
Lotus-headed Sceptre means ' Religious Authority '. 




Fig. 251 

A Snake-headed Rod or Staff signifies ' Military 
Dominion '. A Snaky Rod or Sceptre is the 1 Lituus 9 
or 1 Augur's Divining-rod ', w T hen it is curved at the 
lower as w T ell as the upper end. It is said that this 
was the sceptre of Romulus. 



304 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



We give in another place the Procession of the 
' Logos ', or ' Word according to the Gnostics. 

Fig. 252 : ' The Good Shepherd bearing upon his 
shoulders the Lost Lamb, as he seems to the uninit- 
iated eye : but on close inspection he becomes the 
double-headed Anubis ; having one head human, 
the other a jackal's, whilst his girdle assumes the form 
of a serpent, rearing aloft its crested head. In his 
hand is a long hooked staff. It was perhaps the 
signet of some chief teacher or apostle among the 
Gnostics, and its impression one of the tokens serv- 



ing for mutual recognition mentioned by Epiphanius. 
Neatly engraved in a beautiful red sard, fashioned 
to an octagon form ; a shape never met in the class 
of antique gems, though so much affected in Mediaeval 
art, on account of its supposed mystic virtues ' (The 
Gnostics, p. 201). 

One of the Gnostic Gems, reputed the most effic- 
acious of amulets, is of red jasper, and presents the 
Gorgon's Head (' Gorgoneion '), with the legend below, 
'APHTO PQPOMANAAPH \ ' I protect Rhoro- 
mandares \ 

* In India, the ' Great Abad ' is Bhudda, Bauddha, 
Buddha, or Baddha. There is a connexion sug- 
gested here with the ' Abaddon ' of the Greeks. In 
the same way, a relation may be traced with ' Budha's 
Spiritual Teacher ' ; who was the mythic Pythag- 




Fig. 252 



THE AMAZONS 



305 



oras, the originator of the system of transmigration, 
afterwards transplanted to Egypt, and thence to 
Greece. Thus in Sanscrit it is ' Bud'ha-Gooros ', in 
Greek it is ' Putha-Goras ', in English it is ' Pytha- 
goras ' ; the whole, ' Budha's Spiritual Teacher \ 

The crista, or crest, or symbolic knob of the Phryg- 
ian cap or Median bonnet, is found also, in a feminine 
form, in the same mythic head-cover or helmet, for 
it unites both sexes in its generative idea, being an 
' idol \ In the feminine case — as obviously in all 
the statues of Minerva or Pallas-Athene, and in the 
representations of the Amazons, or woman-champions, 
or warriors — everywhere the cap or helmet has the 
elongated, rhomboidal, or globed, or salient part in 
reverse, or dependent on the nape of the neck. This 
is seen in the illustration of the figure of the armed 
' Pallas- Athene ', among our array of these Phallic 
caps. The whole is deeply mythic in its origin. The 
ideas became Greek ; and when treated femininely 
in Greece, the round or display — which in the mascu- 
line helmet was naturally pointed forward, saiiently 
or exaltedly (the real ' christa or ' crest ') — became 
reversed or collapsed, when worn as the trophy on a 
woman's head. On a narrow review of evidence which 
evades, there is no doubt that these classic helmets 
with their ' crests ', this pileus, Phrygian cap, Cap 
of Liberty, or the Grenadiers' or Hussars' fur caps, or 
cocked hats, have all a phallic origin. 

The Cardinal's ' Red Hat ' follows the same ides 
in a different way ; it is a chapel, chapter, chapiter, 
or chapeau, a discus or table • crimson, as the mystic 
feminine ' rose ', the ' Queen ' of Flowers, is crim- 
son. The word ' Cardinal ' comes both from Car do 
(Hinge, Hinge-Point, ' Virgo ' of the Zodiac), and 
also from Caro, It. Came, flesh — the ' Word made 
flesh/ 

x 



3o6 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

It is probable that these mythological hints and 
secret expressions, as to the magic working of nature, 
were insinuated by the imaginative and ingenious 
Greeks into dress and personal appointments. In 
the temples, and in templar furniture, mythological 
theosophic hints abound ; every curve and every 
figure, every colour and every boss and point, being 
significant among the Grecian contrivers, and among 
those from whom they borrowed — the Egyptians. 
We may assume that this classic Grecian form of the 



C 




Fig- 253 
' Bai a Prize 



head-cover or helmet of the Athenian goddess Pallas- 
Athene, or Minerva, not only originated the well- 
known Grecian mode of arranging women's hair at 
the back, but that this style is also the far-off, classic 
progenitor of its clumsy, inelegant imitation, the 
modern chignon, which is only an abused copy of the 
antique. In our deduction (as shown in a previous 
group of illustrations) of the modern military fur 
caps — particularly the Grenadier caps of all modern 
armies, as well as those of other branches of the mili- 
tary service — from that common great original, into 
which they can be securely traced, the mythic Phryg- 
ian cap when red, the Vulcan's ftileus when black, 
we prove the transmission of an inextinguishable 
important hint in religion. 

The following are some of the most significant talis- 
mans of the Gnostics : 



VENUS 'ATTIRING' OR 'ARMING 1 



In fig. 255 we have the representation of the Gnos- 
tic Female Power in Nature — Venus, or Aphrodite, 
disclosing in the beauty, grace, and splendour of the 
material creation. On the other, or terrible, side of 
her character, the endowments of Venus, or of the 
impersonated idea of beauty, change into the alarm- 




Fig. 235 



ing ; these are the attributes of the malific feminine 
elementary genius born of ' darkness ' or ' matter r 9 
whose tremendous countenance, veiled as in the instance 
of Isis, or masked as in that of the universal mytholog- 
ical Queen of Beauty, inspires or destroys according 




Fig. 256 Fig. 257 



to the angle of contemplation at which she is mythi- 
cally revealed. 

Fig. 256 (a) is the crested ' Snake curved as the 
symbol of the ' Dragon's Tail ', traversing from left 
to right the fields of creation, in which the stars are 
scattered as 1 estoiles ', or waved serpentining flames 
— the mystic 'brood' of the 'Great Dragon'. The 
reverse of this amulet (b) presents the ' crescent ' 



3o8 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



and ' decrescent ' moons, placed back to back, with 
a trace or line, implying that the 1 Microcosmos \ 
or ' Man is made as between the 1 Moons \ This 



figure suggests a likeness to the sign of the ■ Twins 
and to that of the February ' Fishes 

Fig. 257 is the mythological ' Medusa's Head 
terrible in her beauty, which transforms the beholder 
to stone. This direful head is twined around with 
snakes for hair, and the radii which dart from it are 
lightning. It is, nevertheless, esteemed one of the 
most powerful talismans in the Gnostic preservative 
group, though it expresses nothing (in a strange, 
contradictory way) but dismay and destruction. 

Fig. 258 is referred to in a previous part of our 
book as fig. 313. 




Fig. 258 



CHAPTER THE SIXTH 



STRANGE SPECULATIONS OF THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 

' Had Man preserved his original innocence and re- 
fused to taste of the means of that bitter and con- 
demned knowledge (or power of recognition) of good 
and evil, as then there would have been none of that 
physical deficiency asserted to be debited to Women, 
would there likewise have been no females engendered ; 
no propagation of the human species ? By some 
the preference of the robust to the delicate sex is 
accounted beyond all question as self-evident. A 
certain class of philosophers have made no scruple to 
call a woman an imperfect and even monstrous ani- 
mal. These have affirmed that nature, in generation, 
always intends a male, and that it is only from mis- 
take or deficiency, either of the matter or the faculty, 
that a woman is produced/ The oriental ethics have 
degraded woman to the level of a chattel. It is Christ- 
ianity alone, in the discovery of the Divine Mary — 
* Virgin-Mother ' Mother- Virgin ' — that has elevated 
' Woman \ and found for ' Her ' a possible place (of 
course as a Sexed-Sexless, Sexless-Sexed ' Idea ') 
in Heaven — or in that state other than this state; 
irradiated with the ' light breathing with the ' breath ' 
of Divinity. 

Almaricus, a doctor at Paris in the twelfth century, 
advances an opinion that, had the state of innocence 
continued, every individual of our species would have 

309 



3io 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



come into existence a complete ' man and that God 
would have created them by Himself, as He created 
Adam. He theorizes that woman is a defective 
animal, and that the generation of her is purely for- 
tuitous and foreign from nature's intent. He there- 
fore infers that there would have been no women 
4 in a state of innocence \ On the other hand, there 
exists a counterbalancing singular idea, combated 
by St. Austin in his City of God y Book xxii. chap. xvii. ; 
and of which its partisans take upon themselves to 
say that at the universal resurrection this imperfect 
work (woman) will be rendered perfect by a change 
of sex ; all the women becoming men — grace and 
finish being then to complete the work of the human 
form, which nature (in Man) only, as it were, had left 
coarse, unfinished, rough-hewn. These ideas resemble 
closely the conclusions of the alchemists (or of the 
Rosicrucians when applying to practical art), who 
declare that nature, in the production of metals, 
always intends the generation of gold, and that it is 
only from accidental diversion or interposing difficulty, 
or from the deficiency of the virtue or faculty, that 
the working out of the aim falls short, and issues 
(bluntly and disappointed) in another metal — the 
blanker, blacker, and coarser metals being, in fact, 
only as the ' diseases ' of matter, which aims at clear 
perfect health — or as gold. Here the alchemists con- 
tend that their superhuman (in apparent-sense) science, 
felicitously applied, / completes the operation ', and 
transmutes or compels-on, ' into gold ' what weaker- 
handed nature was compelled to ' forego ' as ' iron \ 
Thus nature always intends the production of male 
(sun — gold — fire being the workman, or ' agent ') ; 
but that in the production of female (silver as against 
gold — the moon — sublimated matter, or ' patient *), 
nature's operation miscarries ; the effort degenerates 



FALL OF THE ANGELS 



3" 



into struggle, and struggle submits in failure. There- 
fore, ' Female \ But this shortcoming, when the 
Divine perfecting-means (in another state, and through 
another nature or ' mode ') is applied, will be rectified. 
And in the universal resurrection, Women will tran- 
scend into the nobler creature, and, changing sex or 
ceasing sex, will become — ' Woman' d-Men \ Both 
sexes interchanging ' sex ' to form the ' Angel ', or 
rather blending sex and uniting sex — bicorporate no 
longer, but becoming 1 Ideal ' — fit spirit-populace, 
winnowed of materiality and of humanity. ' Unin- 
telligible to the intellect as Music, but beautiful to the 
heart as Music/ 

Yet it must be understood that no man's dreams 
(dreams, we have elsewhere contended, quite contrary 
to the usual ideas, are real things) are wholly and 
altogether evil and vain ; for that cannot be except 
men were utter (or outer) devils, which also cannot 
be so long as we live in the human nature, for Man's 
Fall was not like the Fall of the Evil Angels ; for 
these latter fell into the Dark Abyss, or Original 
Wrathful Principle (the Rosicrucian ' Refuse ' or 
' Lees ' of Creation, without, or beyond, nature and 
creature, and therefore there was for them no help or 
recovery). But, on the contrary, Men fell and were 
saved thereby (the Knowledge of Good and Evil), 
that is, into Nature and Creature, which is Man's 
inexpressible happiness, as not being left destitute of 
Hope or the Regenerating Seed of the Woman. For 
there does centrally dwell in the human nature that 
which the wise man calls the Voice of Wisdom, or 
conscience-recall ; which in the suggestion of the Im- 
mortal Sorrow planted deep in the soul of man for 
his c Lost Paradise ' (of which the very air and hint 
and proof to him, is Music — Man's Music — with its 
shadow of discords). And this Immortal Sorrow lan- 



312 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



guishes to Redemption in repentance. Thus the 
pathetic languishment of the Saviour (and Sufferer), 
Jesus Christ : ' My soul is sad, even unto death ! ' 
Hence the ' Garden ' of f Agony \ 

This is the Genius Optitnus, the ' Soul of the Soul ' 
and the ' Eye of the Mind ' — that part incapable of 
damnation even in the greatest sinner (this was Crom- 
well's firm reliance and belief, and his last question to 
his attendant chaplain bore reference to the assurance 
of it). This is the last supernatural power which can 
and will defend man from all the assaults of evil 
angels, and unto this holy principle and benevolent 
upspring the dictates and the efforts of all Good Angels 
and Spirits do tend, it being a great part of their work 
and business to assist man, and to defend and preserve 
him from the inward incursions of the multitude of 
the malignant Spirits in their various degrees. 

Trithemius, a noted Rosicrucian, asserts that ' never 
any good Angel appeared in the shape of a woman/ 
Van Helmont, in the ninety-third chapter of one of 
his books, has these words : ' If an Angel appear 
bearded, let him be accounted an evil one ; for a 
Good Angel hath never appeared with a beard. The 
truth is, a woman is the weaker vessel, and was first in 
the Transgression. Therefore, that sex is an emblem 
of weakness and a means of seduction. And therefore 
there is no reason why the Good Angels, amongst 
whom there is no difference of sex, should elect to 
appear as a female ; but rather, being a species of 
creature above humankind, they assume the shape of 
the most excellent of that kind (only feminine in 
regard of grace and beauty) ; and for the same reason 
they may appear without beards, both because " hair 
is an excrement and verges greatly, in the more 
conspicuous instances, to the brutish nature, as also 
more especially in their beardless, beautiful, glorified 



THE MYSTIC BCEHMEN, AND PLATO 313 

aspects, and graceful delicacy and yet power of form, 
to express their perpetual virgin-youth, unspoiled 
heavenly beauty, and immortal star-born vigour. 
Hair being an abhorred, tentacled, reaching-out or 
brute-like animal superflux — the stigma or disgrace of 
the glorious spark of light or nearly suffocated human 
entity, condemned to its earth-birthed investiture or 
body — it can have nothing about the parts of the 
" Deified Idea of Man " — or the various classes of the 
Blessed Angels/ The contrary of all this is to be 
assumed of the evil Genii or the Recusant Genii (Luci- 
ferent and yet Lucifugent), except in regard to their 
power or knowledge. For the ' Soul of the World ' 
and ' Matter and to an important one-half, the ' Means 
of the World ' — are ' Feminine For Night (which 
is the other side of the curtain of Day) is Feminine. 
Thus Bcehmen and Plato ; as representing all the closest- 
of-thought of the centuries. 

All the above is the reproduction of the singular 
ideas of the ' Idealists ' of the Middle Ages. 



CHAPTER THE SEVENTH 



ROSICRUCIAN ORIGIN OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER. 
DEDUCTIONS, AND PROOFS, FROM HISTORICAL 
AUTHORITIES 

The natural horns of the Bull or the Cow — both 
which animals were deified by the Egyptians, and 
also by the Indians, who particularly elected the Cow 
as the object of religious honour — were the models 
from which originally all the volves and volutes, pre- 
senting the figure of curved horns, or the significant 
suggestion of the thin horns of the crescent or growing 
moon, were obtained. The representative horns figured 
largely afterwards in all architecture, and were copied 
as an important symbol expressive of the second 
operative power of nature. The ' Lunar' or ' Femin- 
ine Symbol y is the universal parent of the Hindoo 
and Mahometan returned arches ; and therefore, also, 
of the Horse-shoe curves of the Arabian arches, and 
the hooked curves of all Gothic architectural reproduct- 
ion, whether in arches or otherwise. The Egyptian 
volutes to the pillars, the Egyptian horns everywhere 
apparent, the innumerable spiral radii distinct in all 
directions, or modified, or interpenetrating the orna- 
mentation of buildings in the East • the Ionic volutes, 
the Corinthian volutes, which became pre-eminently 
pictorial and floral in their treatment in this beautiful 
order, particularly in the Greek examples (which are, 
however, very few) ; the more masculine volves and 
volutes, or horns, of the Roman solid, majestic columns ; 
the capitals to the ruder and more grotesque of the 

314 



THE ORDER OF THE GARTER 315 

Indian temples ; the fantastic scrolls and crooks and 
oval curves, abounding on the tops of the spiring 
columns in the Gothic or, more properly to call it, 
the Romantic architecture called ' pointed ' — all have 
a common ancestor in the horns of the bull, calf, or 
cow. All these horns are everywhere devoted in 
their signification to the Moon. It is in connexion 
with this secondary god or goddess, who is always 
recognizable through the peculiar appendage of horns, 
— it is in proximity to this god or goddess, who takes 
the second place in the general Pantheon, the Sun 
taking the first — it is here, in all the illustrations which 
the mythic theology borrows from architecture, or 
the science of expressing religious ideas through hiero- 
glyphical forms — that the incoherent horns reiterate, 
always presenting themselves to recognition, in some 
form or other, at terminal or at salient points. Thus 
they become a most important figure, if not the most 
important figure, in the templar architecture every- 
where — of India, of Egypt, of Greece, of Rome, even 
of the Christian periods — all the Christian ages, earlier 
and later. 

The figure called Nehustan — the mysterious up- 
right set up by Moses in the Wilderness — was a talis- 
man in the form of a serpent coiled around the mystic 
' Tau \ This is a palladium offered for worship, as we 
have explained in several places. 

In a previous part of our book, we have brought 
forward certain reasons for supposing that the origin 
of the Most Noble Order of the Garter was very differ- 
ent from that usually and popularly assigned. The 
occurrence which gave rise to the formation of the 
Order, and which explains the adoption of the motto, 
does not admit of being told, except in far-off, round- 
about terms ; propriety otherwise would be infringed. 
We may say no more than that it was a feminine acci- 



3*6 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



dent, of not quite the character commonly accepted 
and not quite so simple and ordinary as letting fall a 
garter. But this accident, which brought about the 
foundation of the exalted Order, pre-eminently ' Rosi- 
crucian ' in its hidden meanings — however clear it 
becomes when understood, and however sublime, as 
the Rosicrucians asserted it was, when it is apprehended 
in its physiological and also in its deeply mythic sense 
— could not, of necessity, be placed before the world, 
because ordinary persons could not have appreciated 
it, nor would they have felt any other idea than repul- 
sion and disbelief at the statement. The common- 
place, coarse, unprepared mind instantly associates 
indecency with any explanation, however conclusive, 
which cannot for obvious reasons be spoken ' on the 
house-tops \ We are now ourselves, against our 
desire, compelled to speak circuitously about the real, 
successfully conceded, very strange origin, in our 
modern ideas, of this famous ' Order of the Garter \ 
The subject is, however, of very great consequence, 
because there is either meaning of the highest force 
in this, which may be called the ' brotherhood of 
princes as the Order undoubtedly is in a high sense ; 
or there is no particular meaning, and certainly no- 
thing challenging startled attention. There is either 
truth in the abstract, occult matters which the Order 
supposedly is formed to whisper and to maintain, or 
there is only empty, meaningless pretence and affectat- 
ion. There is grandeur and reality in its formalities, 
or the whole institution is no more than a parade of 
things that have no solidity, and an assumption of oaths 
and obligations that regard nothing of consequence — 
nothing of real, vital seriousness. We seek thus to 
ennoble the ' Order ' in idea, by giving it conclusively 
the sanction of religion, and rendering to it the respect 
due to the mighty mystery which may be suspected 



ORIGIN OF THE NAME 'GARTER' 317 

to lie in it ; which it was supposed to emphasize, 
whatever it be held now. We are inclined to view with 
surprise — although in no grudging, prejudiced spirit — 
the obtrusion of the ' Crescent and Star/ the symbol of 
the Grand Signior, Soldan, or Sultan of Turkey, the 
Representative of Mohammed, the 1 Denier of Christ 
according to his supposed religious obligations. It is 
certainly an anomaly to admit the denier of Christ 
in an Order intended to exalt into vital distinct recog- 
nition the Divinity of Christ as ' the Saviour of Man- 
kind \ How can the Sultan of Turkey, or any Mahomet- 
an, or any disbeliever, discharge the oaths which he 
is solemnly assumed to take in this respect ? We are 
disposed to contemplate the addition of the Moslem 
banner — the direct contradiction and neutraliser of 
the ensigns of the Christian knights — suspended in the 
Chapel of the Order, the Chapel of St . George at Windsor, 
as a perplexing, uncomfortable intrusion, according 
to assumed correct Christian ideas. We fear that 
the admission of this heathen knight may possibly 
imply heraldically the infraction of the original consti- 
tutions of the Order, which created it as exclusively 
Christian. The ' Garter ' is specially devoted to the 
Virgin Mary and to the honour (in the glorification 
of ' Woman ') of the Saviour of Mankind. The 
knights-companions are accepted, supposedly, as the 
special initiated holy guard of the Christian mysteries, 
and they are viewed as a sworn body of ' brothers 
by day and night, from their first association, bound 
to maintain and uphold, in life and in death, the 
faith that had Bethlehem for its beginning and Calvary 
for its end. The bond and mark of this brotherhood 
is the Red Cross of Crucifixion. The ' Red Cross 9 
which is the ' Cross * of the ' Rosicrucians ' — thence 
their name. 

Even the badge and star and symbol of this most 



3i8 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Christian Order, if ever there were a Christian Order 
— which presents this red or sanguine cross of the 
Redeemer, imaged in the cognisance of His champion, 
or captain, or chief soldier, St. George or St. Michael, 
the Trampler of the Dragon, and Custos of the Keys 
of the Bottomless Pit, where the devils are confined 
— protests against the mingling of this Mussulman 
banner with the Red Cross, which opposed it in the 
hands of the Crusaders, and in those of all Christian 
knights. Now all the Christian 1 Garter ' badges only 
seem to appeal and to protest quietly and under allow- 
ance, with ' bated breath 5 as it were (as if afraid), 
deficient in firmness and life, leaving results to chance, 
and abandoning expostulation to be regarded or dis- 
regarded (or taken up faintly) according to circum- 
stances. 

These are matters, however, which properly apper- 
tain to the office, and lie in the hands of the digni- 
taries of the Order of the Garter. These officials 
are its Prelate and 1 Garter ' himself (the personified 
' Order '), who are supposed, because of the sublime 
duties with which they are charged, to be the guard- 
ians of the meanings and the myths of an Order of 
Knighthood whose heraldic display in one form or 
other covers the land (or covers the world), and must 
be interpreted either as talisman or toy. The Bishop of 
Winchester is always the chief ecclesiastical authority 
of the Order. Remark here, as the sanctions of this 
1 Most Noble Order that in Winchester we directly 
alight upon ' King Arthur and his Knights of the 
" Round Table " ' — what the ' Round Table ' is, we have 
explained elsewhere. In these days without faith, 
wherein science (as it is called in the too arbitrary 
and overriding sense) has extinguished the lights of 
enthusiasm, leaving even our altars dark, desecrated, 
and cold, and has eliminated all possible wonder from 



KING ARTHUR'S ROUND TABLE 319 

the earth, as miracle from religion, and magic from 
the sensible or insensible fields of creation — in these 
questioning, doubting, dense, incredulous days, it is 
no inconsistency that the gorgeous emblazonments 
of the Garter should provoke no more curiosity or 
religious respect than peculiar ornaments do, signifying 
anything or nothing. 

But to return to the import of the title of the Order 
of the Garter. This is a point very engrossing to 
heralds, antiquaries, and all persons who are interested 
in the history, traditions, and archaeology of our 
country. The origin of the Order would be trivial, 
ridiculous, and unbelievable, if it be only thought due 
to the picking up of a lady's garter. It is impossible 
that the great name and fame of this ' Garter ' could 
have arisen alone from this circumstance. The Gar- 
ter, on the contrary, is traceable from the times of 
King Arthur, to whose fame throughout Europe as the 
mythic hero there was no limit in his own period. 
This we shall soon show conclusively from the accounts 
of the Garter by Elias Ashmole, who was ' Garter King 
of Arms and who was one of its most painstaking 
and enlightened historians ; besides himself being a 
faithful and conscientious expositor and adherent of 
the hermetic Rosicrucian science. The * Round Table ' 
of King Arthur — the 1 mirror of chivalry 1 — supplies 
the model of all the miniature tables, or tablets, which 
bear the contrasted roses — red and white, as they were 
originally (and implying the female discus and its acci- 
dents) — with the noble \ vaunt or motto, round them 
— ' Evil to him or the same to him, ' who thinks ill ' 
of these natural (and yet these magical) feminine cir- 
cumstances, the character of which our readers will by 
this time not fail to recognize. The glory of woman 
and the punishment of woman after the Fall, as indi- 
cated in Genesis, go hand in hand. It was in honour 



320 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



of Woman, and to raise into dignity the expression of 
the condemned ' means ' (until sanctified and recon- 
ciled by the intervention of the ' S.S.', or of the Holy 
Spirit, or of the Third Person of the Trinity), which is 
her mark and betrayal, but which produced the world 
in producing Man, and which saved the world in the 
person of the Redeemer, ' born of Woman \ It is to 
glorify typically and mystically this * fleshly vehicle 
that the Order of the ' Garter ' — or * Garder ' — that 
keeps it sacred was instituted. The Knights of the 
Garter stand sentinel, in fact, over ' Woman's Shame 
at the same time that they proclaim her ' Glory in 
the pardoned sense. These strange ideas are strictly 
those of the old Rosicrucians, or Brethren of the * Red 
Cross and we only reproduce them. The early wri- 
ters saw no indecency in speaking openly of these 
things, which are usually hidden away, as improper 
to be spoken about. 

The blackness or darkness of ' Matter or of the 
■ Mother of Nature is figured in another respect in 
the belongings of this famous feminine Order, insti- 
tuted for the glory of woman. Curious armorists, 
skilled in the knowledge of the deep sacred symbolism 
with which the old heralds suffused their illustrations 
or emblazonments, will remember that black is a feat- 
ure in the Order of the Garter ; and that, among 
figures and glyphs and hints the most profound, the 
' Black Book containing the original constitutions 
of the Order — from which ' Black Book ' comes the 
important ' Black Rod ' — was lost, or taken away 
for some secret reason before the time of Henry the 
Fifth. See various pages, ante, for previous remarks 
about the ' Garter \ 

Elias Ashmole mentions the Order in the following 
terms : ' We may ascend a step higher ; and if we 
may give credit to Harding, it is recorded that King 



COMMON THEORY OF THE GARTER 321 

Arthur paid St. George, whose red cross is the badge 
of the Garter, the most particular honours ; for he 
advanced his effigy in one of his banners, which was 
about two hundred years after his martyrdom, and 
very early for a country so remote from Cappadocia 
to have him in reverence and esteem/ 

In regard to the story of the Countess of Salisbury 
and her garter, we shall insert the judgment of Dr. 
Heylin, who took great pains to ascertain its founda- 
tion. ' This I take to be a vain and idle romance ', 
he says, ' derogatory both to the founder and the 
Order, first published by Polydore Virgil, a stranger 
to the affairs of England, and by him taken upon 
no better ground than fama vulgi, the tradition of the 
common people — too trifling a foundation upon which 
to raise so great a building.' 

The material whereof the Garter was composed 
at first is an arcanum, nor is it described by any writer 
before Polydore Virgil, and he only speaks of it in 
general terms. The Garter was originally without 
a motto \ As to the appointments of the Order, we 
may gain the most authentic idea of them from the 
effigies of some of the first knights. Sir William 
Fitz-warin was buried on the north side of the chancel 
of the church of Wantage, in Berkshire, in the thirty- 
fifth year of the reign of King Edward the Third. 
Sir Richard Pembridge, who was a Knight of the 
Garter, of the time of Edward the Third, lies on the 
south side of the cathedral of Hereford. The monu- 
ment of Sir Simon Burley, beheaded a.d. 1388, was 
raised in the north wall, near the choir of St. Paul's, 
London. It is remarkable that Du Chesne, a noted 
French historian, is the source from which we derive 
the acknowledgment that it was by the special 
invocation of St. George that King Edward the Third 
1 A proof that it did not originate with Edward the Third. 

Y 



322 



THE ROSICRUCIAXS 



gained the Battle of Cressy ; which 1 lying deeply 
in his remembrance, he founded continues Du 
Chesne, ' a chapel within the Castle of Windsor, and 
dedicated it in gratitude to the Saint, who is the 
Patron of England.' The first example of a Garter 
that occurs is on the before-mentioned monument 
of Sir Francis Burley ; where, on the front, towards 
the head, are his own arms, impaling his first wife's, 
set within a garter. This wants the impress, or motto. 
Another shield of arms, having the same impale- 
ment placed below the feet, is surrounded with a 
collar of ' S.S. ', of the same form with that about 
his neck. It was appointed by King Henry the 
Eighth, and embodied in the Statutes of the Order, 
that the collar should be composed of pieces of gold, 
in fashion of Garters ; the ground enamelled blue, 
and the letters of the motto gold. In the midst of 
each garter two roses were to be placed, the innermost 
enamelled red, and the outermost white ; contrarily, 
in the next garter, the innermost Rose enamelled 
white, and the outermost red, and so alternately ; 
but of later times, these roses are wholly red. The 
number of these Garters is so many as to be the 
ordained number of the sovereign and knights-com- 
panions. At the institution they were twenty-six, 
being fastened together with as many knots of gold. 
And this mode hitherto has continued invariable ; 
nor ought the collar to be adorned or enriched with 
precious stones (as the ' George ' may be), such being 
prohibited by the laws of the Order. At what time 
the collar of ' S.S. J came into England is not fully 
determined ; but it would seem that it came at least 
three hundred years since. The collar of 1 S.S.' 
means the Magian, or First Order, or brotherhood. 
In the Christian arrangements, it stands for the ' Holy 
Spirit ', or 1 Third Person of the Trinity \ In the 



MYSTIC DETAIL OF THE ROUND TABLE 323 

Gnostic talismans, it is displayed as the bar, curved 
with the triple 1 S.\ Refer to the ' Cnuphis Abraxoids ' 
occurring in our book, for we connect the collar of 
' S.S.' with the theology of the Gnostics. 

That the Order of the Garter is feminine, and that 
its origin is an apotheosis of the 1 Rose and of a 
certain singular physiological fact connected with 
woman's life, is proven in many ways — such as the 
double garters, red and white ; the twenty-six knights, 
representing the double thirteen lunations in the 
year, or their twenty-six mythic s dark and light ' 
changes of 'night and day \ 

There are 13 Lunations in the Year, or the Solar 
Circle : — twice 13 are Twenty-Six, the dark and the 
light renewals or changes of the Moon (which is 
feminine). The dark infer the red rose, the light 
imply the white rose ; both equally noble and coequal 
in rank with parallel, but different, Rosicrucian mean- 
ings. These mythic discs } or red and white roses, 
correspond with the Twenty-Six Seats, or ' Stalls 
around the 1 Round Table 9 (which is an Apotheosis), 
allowing two chief seats (or one ' Throne ') as pre- 
eminent for the King-Priest, Priest-King, in the 
' Siege-Perilous \ The whole refers to King Arthur 
and his Knights of the Round Table, set round as 
sentinels (' in lodge ') of the Sangreal, or Holy Graal 
— the 1 Sacrifice Mysterious or ' Eucharist \ 

' But how is all this magic and sacred in the estimate 
of the Rosicrucians ? ' an inquirer will very naturally 
ask. The answer to all this is very ample and satis- 
factory ; but particulars must be left to the sagacity 
of the querist himself, because propriety does not 
admit of explanation. Suffice it to say, that it is 
one of the most curious and wonderful subjects which 
has occupied the attention of antiquaries. That 
archaeological puzzle, the ' Round Table of King 



324 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Arthur is a perfect display of this whole subject 
of the origin of the ' Garter ' ; it springs directly 
from it, being the same object as that enclosed by 
the mythic garter, ' garder or ' girther \ 

King Edward the Third chose the Octave of the 
' Purification of the Blessed Virgin ' for the inaugur- 
ation of his Order. Andrew du Chesne declares that 
this new Order was announced on ' New Year's Day, 
a.d. 1344'. There were jousts holden in honour of 
it on the ' Monday after the Feast of St. Hilary follow- 
ing — January 19th \ There are variations in the 
histories as to the real period of the institution of 
the Garter ; most historians specifying the year 1349. 
Ashmole states that a great supper was ordered to 
inaugurate the solemnity of the institution, and that 
a Festival was to be annually held at Whitsuntide 
(which means the ' S.S.') ; that King Edward erected 
a particular building in the Castle, and therein placed 
a table (' Round Table ') of 200 feet diameter, giving 
to the building itself the name of the ' Round Table \ 
He appropriated £100 per week — an enormous sum 
in those days — for the maintenance of this table. 
In imitation of this, the French King, Philip de Valois, 
instituted a ' Round Table ' for himself at his court. 
Some say that he had an intention of instituting an 
order of knighthood upon the same ' feminine subject 
but that he was anticipated by King Edward ; which 
shows that it was something more than an accident 
and a mere garter which inspired the idea of this 
Rose forming the mystery. The knights were deno- 
minated t Equites Aureae Periscelidis \ King Edward 
the Third had such veneration for the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, that he ordained that the habit of his Knights 
of the Garter should be worn on the days of her Five 
Solemnities. Elias Ashmole states that the original 
of the Statutes of Institution had wholly perished 



SIR JOHN FROISSART 



325 



long before his time. There was a transcript existing 
in the reign of Henry the Fifth, in an old book called 
Registrant Ordinis Chartaceuni. Though the Order 
was instituted so long ago as in the year 1344, it 
was not till the reign of Charles the Second that the 
Knights were empowered to wear the star they use 
at present embroidered on their coats. The rays are 
the ' glory ' round the ' Red Cross \ 

Sir John Froissart, the only writer of the age that 
treats of this institution, assigns no such origin as the 
picking up of the Countess of Salisbury's garter ; nor 
does he adduce the words of the motto of the Garter 
as having been spoken by King Edward the Third 
when encountering the laughter of his court, and 
assuring them that he would make the proudest 
eventually wear it as the most illustrious badge. 
There can be only one conclusion as to the character 
of the investment which was picked up ; and which 
article of dress makes it clear that the Countess of 
Salisbury — or the lady, whoever she may be, who 
has succeeded in becoming so wonderfully celebrated 
in the after-ages of chivalry — should have rather been at 
home, and at rest, than inattentive to saltatory risks 
in engaging in a dance or in forgetful gambols at a 
crowded court. There was no mention of this sup- 
posed picking up of a garter for 200 years, nor was 
there anything referring to such an origin occurring 
in any of our historians other than Sir John Froissart, 
until Polydore Virgil took occasion to say something 
of it in his notices of the origin of the Order. In the 
original Statutes of the Order (which is a most 
important point in the inquiry) there is not the least 
conjecture expressed, nor does the compiler of that 
tract entitled Institutio clarissimi Ordinis Militaris 
a prcenobili Subligaculo mmcupata, prefaced to the 
Black Book of the Garter, let fall any passage on which 



326 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



to ground the adroit conclusions about the Garter. 
Polydore does not mention whose garter it was ; 
this he cautiously declines to do. He says 
that it was either the Queen's, or that of the King's 
mistress — meaning Joan, Countess of Salisbury, with 
whom it was supposed the King was in love, and 
whom he believed when she was bravely holding out 
for him against the Scots, in her Castle of Wark-upon- 
Tweed ; but she was certainly no mistress of the 
King's, in the injurious and unworthy sense. It 
is to be particularly noticed that the Latin words 
subltGAR subligaculum, mean not a ' garter 1 but 
' breeches, drawers, or trousers \ It was therefore 
not a garter for the leg, but a cincture for the body, 
which was thus picked up publicly, and elevated for 
honour, as such an unexpected illustrious object ; 
one around which the most noble knights were to 
take enthusiastic oaths of the most devoted religious 
homage. Now, unless there had been some most 
extraordinary meaning under all this (lying under 
the apparent but only apparent, indecency), such 
an idolizing of a garter could never have occurred, 
and the whole occurrence ages ago would have been 
laughed into oblivion, carrying the sublime honours 
of the ' Garter ' with it. Instead of this, the Garter 
is the highest token of greatness the Sovereign of 
England can bestow, and it is contended for and 
accepted with eager pride by Princes. ' Subligaculum, 
breeches , drawers, trousers '. ' Subligatus, cinctured , 
bound, etc., wearing drawers \ The origin of the 
' Garter ' is proven in this word not to be a garter 
at all. 

It is most generally supposed that it was on January 
19th, 1344, that King Edward instituted his famous 
Order of the Garter. This period, it will be perceived, 
was almost within an octave of the purification of 



ST. MICHAEL AND ST. GEORGE 327 

the Blessed Virgin Mary ; under whose patronage, 
and under the guardianship of St. George on earth 
(St. Michael in heaven ; both these Saints being the 
same, with earthly and spiritual attributes refluent 
respectively) King Edward placed his profoundly 
religious Order. The whole was a revival of the 
' Round Table ' of King Arthur, or the apotheosized 
female discus in certain mythical aspects. To con- 
firm us in our assertion of the feminine origin of the 
Order of the Garter — which many in their ignorance 
have questioned — we may state that one of the old 
chroniclers, though somewhat guardedly, as befitted 
those great persons of whom he spoke, declares that 
the lady who let fall her garter, or ' garder was the 
Queen, who had suddenly left the courtly assembly 
in some confusion, and was hastening to her own 
apartments, followed by the King, who, at first, 
did not perceive the reason when the spectators avoided 
lifting the article, being aware to whom it belonged ; 
but who raised it himself, and called aloud, not the 
words of the motto of the Garter, which the historian 
says that the Queen herself spoke, but giving an 
intimation that he would, spite of their laughter, 
' make the proudest of the refusers wear the rejected 
cincture as the grandest badge that knighthood ever 
bore \ Rightly viewed, this little evaded incident — 
— which we desire to restore to its proper place of 
due respect in the knowledge of Englishmen — is the 
most conclusive proof of King Edward's nobleness 
and greatness of heart, and of his chivalrous, inex- 
pressibly gallant delicacy ; an instance admirable 
to all future generations, and worthy of the most 
enduring applause. The reader finally is referred 
to our observations in a previous part of our book 
for evidence in our justification. In the foregoing 
we give the Rosicrucian view of the origin of the 



328 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



'Garter*. It is the centre-point round which have 
converged the noblest ideas and the most illustrious 
individuals in the world. It is still the proudest 
and most solemn badge, and the chiefest English 
knightly dignity. Strangely enough, too, this whole 
history of the ' Garter ' teaches, as its moral, the 
greatness of the proper independence of shame, and 
the holiness of its unconsciousness. 

Also the gallantry and the knighthood of the hold- 
ing sacred these strange natural things. 



+ 



CHAPTER THE EIGHTH 



ROSICRUCIAN SUPPOSED MEANS OF MAGIC THROUGH 
SIGNS, SIGILS, AND FIGURES 

The Dragon's Head and Dragon's Tail are the points 
called Nodes, in which the ecliptic is intersected by 
the orbits of the planets, particularly by that of the 
moon. These points are of course shifting. The 
Dragon's Head is the point where the moon or other 
planet commences its northward latitude ; it is con- 
sidered masculine and benevolent in its influence. 
The Dragon's Tail is the point where the planet's 
southward progress begins ; it is feminine and malev- 
olent. The Dragon mystically is the ' self-willed 
spirit ', which is externally derived into nature by 
the i fall into generation ' (Hermes Trismegistus). 

The same fine, catholic nature — which in its preter- 
natural exaltation appears so very precious in the 
eyes of the philosopher — is in the common world 
defiled ; abiding everywhere in putrefactions and 
the vilest forms of seemingly sleeping, but in reality 
most active, forms of life. 

According to Ennemoser, ' Magiusiah, Madschusie ' 
signified the office and knowledge of the priest, who 
was called ' Mag, Magius, Magiusi ', and afterwards 
'Magi' and c Magician'. Brucker maintains (His- 
toria Philosophic Criticce, i. 160) that the positive 
meaning of the word is ' Fire-worshipper ', ' Worship 
of the Light ' ; to which opinion he had been led 
by the Mohammedan dictionaries. In the modern 



330 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Persian the word is ' Mag \ and ' Magbed ' signifies 
high-priest. The high-priest of the Parsees at Surat, 
even at the present day, is called ' Mobed \ 

The mythic figure placed in the front of the Irish 
Harp — the meaning of which we have explained in a 
previous part of our book, and which is now repre- 
sented as a woman with the lower parts twined as 
foliage, or as scrolls, into the body of the harp — is 
properly a Siren. This ' Siren ' is the same as Venus 
Aphrodite, Astarte, the Sea-Deity, or Woman-Deity, 
the Dag, Dagan, Dagon, or idol of the Syrians, Tyrians, 
or Phoenicians ; hence her colour is green in the 
lona, Ierne, or Irish acceptation. The woman or 
virgin of the Irish Harp, who is impaled on the stock 
or ' Tree of Life ' — the Siren whose fatal singing means 
her mythic Bhuddistic or Buddhistic ' penance of 
existence ' — the Medusa whose insupportable beauty 
congeals in its terror the beholder to stone, according 
to the mythologists — this magic being is translated 
from the sign of Virgo in the heavens, and sent mythic- 
ally to travel condemned the verdant line of beauty, 
or the cabalistic benedicta line a viriditatis. The whole 
of the meaning, notwithstanding its glory, is, none 
the less, ' sacrifice \ The Woman of the Harp of 
the Seven Strings, or the seven vocables, vowels, or 
aspirations, or intelligent breathings, or musical 
notes, or music-producing planets (in their progress), 
is purely an astrological sigma — although a grand one 
— adopted into heraldry. In the old books of heraldry, 
the curious inquirer will find (as will all those who 
doubt) this ' Woman ' or ' Virgin ' of the ' Irish harp ' 
— to whom, in the modern heraldic exemplification, 
celestial wings are given, and who is made beautiful 
as an angel (which in reality she is, the other form 
being only her disguise) — represented as a dragon 
with extended forky pinions, and piscine or semi- 



AL-HUZA, OR VENUS, OR ' VENUS-HUSSEY ' 331 



fish-like or basilisk extremity. There is a wonderful 
refluent, or interfluent, unaccountable connexion, in 
the old mythology, between the ' Woman the 
' Dragon or the ' Snake and the 1 Sea ' : so that 
sometimes, in the obscure hints supplied in the pic- 
turesque suggestive ancient fables, it is really difficult 
to distinguish one from the other. The associations 
of an interchangeable character between dark and 
light, and ' Dragon ' and 1 Hero ascribing to each 
some mystic characteristic of the other, cannot be 
all fabling accident. There are hints of deep mysteries, 
transcendent in their greatness and beauty, lying 
under these things in some concealed, real way. To 
bring these to the surface, to discover their origin, 
and, to the justifiable and guarded extent, to assign 
them properly, has been our aim. There must have 
been some governing, excellent armorial reason, special 
and authorized, for the changing of this first figure 
of a dragon into a woman, or a siren, or virgin, on 
the Irish Harp ; and this fact assists the supposition 
of an identity, at some time, of these two figures, 
all drawn from the double sign ' Virgo-Scorpio ' in 
the Zodiac. There is a strange confirmation of the 
account of Creation in the Book of Genesis, in the 
discovery of the ' Woman and Snake ' in the most 
ancient Babylonian or Chaldaean Zodiac. The Indian 
zodiacs and the Egyptian zodiacs repeat the same 
myth, slightly varied in certain particulars. The 
different versions of the story of the Temptation and 
Fall, in the main respects, are the same legend, only 
altered to suit ideas in every varying country. Travers- 
ing all the long-descended paths of the mythologies, 
this singular, but in reality sublime, myth preserves 
its place, and recurs up to the last in its identity. The 
first chapter of Genesis seems to us to be clearly found 
here in the signs of the Zodiac ; which we know are 



332 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



derived from the earliest astronomical studies, and 
which extraordinary hieroglyphical zodiacal figures 
descended originally from the summit of the famous 
Tower of Bel, or Belus — the first observatory where 
the movements and the story of the stars were at the out- 
set noted, and handed as from the earliest expositors of 
the secrets of the heavens. This f Procession of Twelve ' 
(in the origin it was the ' Procession of Ten under 
the name of the Zodiac, tells, in its ' signs the history 
of the making of the world, according to the Chaldaeans 
and Egyptians, and also, in the hidden way, according 
to the account in the Bible. 

As the little and the large have sometimes a closer 
connexion than is ordinarily supposed, we will pass 
on now to some more familiar and commonplace 
examples. 

It may be worth while to dwell with greater min- 
uteness on the little-understood origin of those light 
auxiliary troops, as they were organized originally, 
the modern Hussars. This irregular, lightly-equipped 
European cavalry plays an important part as a skir- 
mishing or foraging force. We are all accustomed 
to see the elegantly appointed light cavalry called 
Hussars, and doubtless many persons have frequently 
wondered as to the origin of that dolman, pelisse, or 
loose jacket, which is worn, contrary to all apparent 
use, dangling — an encumbrance rather than a cover 
or defence — on the trooper's left shoulder. This 
pelisse, richly embroidered in the Eastern fashion, is 
always the genuine distinctive mark or badge, with 
the Wallachian or Hungarian, or Oriental, busby of 
the Hussar. The precise time when this originally 
loosely disciplined and heathen soldiery came into 
Europe is not fixed. They now form a dazzling and 
formidable branch of light-cavalry service every- 
where. All armies of modern times possess regiments 



NOAH, AND: HIS SON HAM 333 

of Hussars. They came originally from Tartary 
and the East, and they brought with them their 
invariable mark, the rough fur cap, or Ishmaelitish or 
' Esau-like ' black head-cover. They adventured into 
the West with the now thickly ornamented and 
embroidered ' trophy called the pelisse, or skin-coat 
('pel 9 from pellis, 1 skin ' ; thence ■ pall '). 

In these modern tasteless, ignorant days all these 
distinctive learned marks are obliterated in the equip- 
ment of troops. We may also instance, as proofs 
of disregard and of bad taste, the blundering dishonour 
offered to the majestic Obelisk brought to England 
in 1878, in the choice of its inappropriate site, and in 
the ignoring, for state reward, those who brought it 
to this country. 

This pelisse is an imitation or reminder, and is the 
very remote symbol, or garment, or ' cover of shame/ 
as it is called, with which, for very singular cabalistic 
reasons (which, however, do not admit of explanation), 
the two dutiful sons of Noah covered and f atoned ' 
for that disgrace of their father, when, after he had 
' planted a vineyard, and had drunken of the wine, 
he lay disgracefully extended in his tent and was 
seen by his son Ham ; whom Noah denounced. The 
Hussars (under other names) were originally Eastern, 
Saracenic, or Moslem cavalry. The horse-tails and 
jingles, or numberless little bells, which ought to 
distinguish the caparisons of Hussars to the modern 
day, and which are part of the special insignia of their 
origin, are all Oriental in their character, like the 
bells of the wandering Zingari, ' Morris or Moresque, 
or Gypsy, or Bohemian fantastical dancers. Deep- 
lying in the magical ideas of the Eastern peoples was 
the sacredness, and the efficacy against evil spirits, of 
their small bells, like the bells of the Chinese pagodas. 
All bells, in every instance, even from the giant bell 



334 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



of the Dom-Kirche or Duomo, or the cathedrals of 
Kasan or Casan, Moscow or Muscovia generally, down 
to the ' knell \ or the 1 sacring ' or warning bell of 
the Romish Mass (which latter ' signal ' has a signifi- 
cation overpowering in its profundity), are held to 
disturb and to scare and drive off evil spirits. These 
were supposed, according to the old superstitious 
ideas, to congregate thickly, with opportunities acci- 
dentally offered either in the din of battle to impair 
invisibly the exertions of the combatants, or in the 
church to spoil the Eucharist, by tempting the cele- 
brating priest, or hampering or hindering the cere- 
monial and its triumphant sacred climax. 

The Eastern name of Venus is Al-Hitza or Husa, 
which stands for the Egyptian ' Divine Woman or 
Isis. 

' Hussey with its inflections of opprobrium, in 
the vernacular — strangely to say in regard of the 
champions mentioned above, who are the followers 
and the children of Venus. Venus ' Hussey as in 
a certain sense she may be considered. 

Al-Huza means the hyacinth, acacia, or lily, sacred 
to the * Woman or to the complying and therefore 
productive powers of nature. The word ' Hussar ' 
comes, through circuitous paths of translation, from 
its original Al-Husa. These Hussars are the alert, 
agile, armed children, or soldiers, of Cybele. It is 
well known that the knights of old — particularly the 
Crusaders when they returned to the West — adopted 
the Oriental fashion of covering their appointments 
and horse-furniture with bells, the jingle raised by 
which, and at the same time the spreading or flying- 
out, in onset, of the lambrequin or slit scarf attached 
to the helmet, with the shouted war-cry, or cri de 
guerre, struck terror into the opposed horse and rider. 
Naturalists suppose that even the spangled tail of the 



THE HOLY OF HOLIES 



335 



peacock, with its emerald eyes, answers a similar 
purpose, when spread out, of frightening animals who 
intend an attack. The knights, therefore, may have 
borrowed the hint of thus startling their foes, and of 
confusing them with the sudden display of colours and 
disturbing points — as if sprung from a spontaneous, 
instant, alarming centre— from the peacock when 
startled by an enemy. The bird has also his terrify- 
ing outcry, similar to the knight's mot de guerre, or 
individual ' motto \ 

The Hebrew priests were directed to fringe their 
garments round about with ' bells and pomegranates 
in the words of the text. The use and intention of 
these I bells and pomegranates ' have been subjected 
to much discussion, particularly a passage which we 
now cite : 

' A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell 
and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round 
about. And it shall be upon Aaron to minister : 
and his sound shall be heard when he goeth in unto 
the holy place before the Lord, and when he cometh 
out, that he die not ' (Exodus xxviii. 34 — 35). 

The reason supposed in the Targum for the direct- 
ions given to the priest in these two verses of the 
chapter containing the law is, that the priest's 
approach should be cautious to the innermost ' Holy 
of Holies \ or sanctuary of the Tabernacle. The sound 
of the small bells upon his robe was intended to 
announce his approach before his actual appearance, 
in order to recall the attention of the ' Angel of the 
Lord ' to the fact of the coming of a mortal, so that 
He who was supposed to be then personally descended, 
and possibly ' brooding ' (to make use of the words 
of Genesis), in the secret shrine or penetralia, might 
be allowed time (according to the ideas of men) to 
gather up and concentrate His presence — which ' no 



336 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



man can be permitted to behold 1 and live ' — and to 
withdraw. For the Divinity to be seen by the pro- 
fane eye is guilt and annihilation to the latter ; there- 
fore the gods and all spirits have, in every account 
of their appearance, been seen in some worldly form, 
which might be acceptable to, and supportable by, 
a human face. There is, theoretically, such con- 
trariety, and such fatal difference to the constitution 
of man, in the actual disclosure of a spirit, that it is 
wholly impossible except by his death ; therefore 
spirits and divine appearances have always been 
invested in some natural escape or guise, by the 
medium of which the personal communication, what- 
ever it might be, might be made without alarm, and 
without that bodily disturbance of nervous assent 
which should destroy. This alarm would, by the 
utter upsetting of the mind, and the possible fatal 
effect, otherwise have rendered the disclosure imposs- 
ible. The denial of the interior parts of a sanctuary, 
or adytum , to the priests of the temple, or even to the 
chief hierarch sometimes, is supposed to have arisen 
on this account. Mythological story is full of the 
danger of breaking in unpreparedly upon spiritual 
presences, or of venturing into their haunts rashly 
or foolhardily. The real object and purpose of the 
veil to the Hebrew Temple, and of the curtains and 
enclosures ordered in the Jewish ceremonial complic- 
ated arrangements, are certainly of this class. Thus, 
in the idea that God did really pass down at chosen 
times from Heaven, even in a possible visible shape, 
to His Altar (though not, perhaps, in the form expected 
by man in his ignorant notions), the sacred place 
was carefully shut in, and all access to it set round 
with rigid, awful caution. There is fine and subtle 
meaning in that old expression in Genesis, ' to brood 
1 Unless self-disclosed. 



TEMPLES 



337 



as if to be fixed or rapt, and thus to be self- 
contained and oblivious, even inattentive. The 
ancients — the Greeks especially — constructed their 
temples originally without roofs, in order that there 
might be no obstacle interposed by them to the descent 
of the God to the temple which was especially raised 
in His honour. He was imagined, at favourable 
opportunities, to descend — either visibly or invisibly 
— into His appropriate temple ; and it was not to 
seem to exclude, but rather in every way to invite 
straight from the supernal regions, that the ancients 
left open the direct downward way to the penetralia. 
From this sacred point, when the God was supposed 
to be expected or present, every eye, even that of 
the High-Priest, was shut out. The covered temple, 
or the ceiled temple — of which the chapter-house, or 
particular temple, with a ' crown or ' cap or 
' cover \ presents the small example — is the downs 
templi or dornns Dei, where the ' Manifested God ' 
is supposed to be enclosed, or wherein the ' Man 
is made Flesh 1 — the microcosmos or spirit within 
his cincture, or walls, or castle of comprehension, or 
of senses. 



z 



CHAPTER THE NINTH 



ASTRO-THEOSOPHICAL (EXTRA-NATURAL) SYSTEM OF THE 
ROSICRUCIANS — THE ALCHEMIC MAGISTERIUM OR 
' STONE ' 

The letters of all languages are significant marks or 
symbols, which have the ' Twelve or rather the 
original 1 Ten, Signs ' of the ' Zodiac ' for their beginn- 
ing. Of these letters there is a certain group which 
has, in the characters of all languages, a secret hiero- 
glyphical, hagiographical reference to the originally 
single, and afterwards double, sign 1 Virgo-Scorpio \ 
which is supposed to give the key to the secret or 
cabalistic ' Story of Creation'. These letters are S 
and Z, L and M ; or rather a group, which is marked 
by A, n, M, 2, S, Z— L, M, V, W. The significant 
aspirates, or s vowel-sounds \ follow the same rule. 
The f Snake-like Glyph or ' mystery of the Serpent \ 
or disguise, in which the ' Recusant Principle ' is 
supposed to have invested himself, has coiled (so to 
say), and projects significant curves and inflections, 
through all this group of letters and sounds ; which 
is perceivable, by a close examination and quick ear, 
in all languages, living and dead. The sigma presents 
itself to the eye (that recognizes) in the Hebrew, the 
Sanscrit, the Persian, the Arabic, the Coptic, the 
old Gothic, the Georgian or Iberian, the Ancient 
Armenian, the Ethiopic or Gheez, the Sclavonic, the 
Greek, the Latin, the Samaritan, the Irish, the 
Etruscan — of all which alphabets, and the symbols 
serving for their * numerals we had prepared a 

338 



(NATURAL LAW AND MAGICAL LAW 339 

comparative table, to prove the identity of the sign 
1 Virgo-Scorpio ' and its ciphers ; but we forbore in 
deference to our limits (and from other circumstances), 
which did not advisedly admit of the addition. 

A comparative display of all marks or symbols 
which give occult expression to the ' female side of 
nature ', and its astroronical and astrological signs, 
affords the same result of identity. The marks of 
the ' signs ' W and n\, and their ciphers, are inter- 
changeable, and reflect intimately from one to the 
other. It must be remembered that the sign Libra 
— our modern September — the ' hinge-point ' or 
' balance-centre ' of the two wings of the celestial 
Zodiac — was an addition by the Greeks. Here, accord- 
ing to the Sabaean astrological tradition, the origin 
of ' Good and Evil ', of the marine and the benevolent 
' cabalistic investments of nature ', the beginning 
of this ' two-sexed ', intelligent sublunary world, 
were to be found — all contained in the profoundest 
mysteries of this double sign. 

The cabalistic theory, and the Chaldsean reading 
is, that the problems of the production of the sensible 
world are not to be read naturally, but super naturally. 
It was held that man's interior natural law is con- 
tained in God's exterior magical law. It followed 
from this that present nature is secondary nature : 
that man is living in the ' ruins ' of the angelic world, 
and that man himself is a ' ruin '. Man fell into 
the degradation of ' nature ' as the result of the seduct- 
ion by the woman (to sexual sin), which produced 
the ' generations ' according to Man's ideas. The 
strange theories as to the history of the first world 
prevalent among the Cabalists imply that the appear- 
ance of ' woman ' upon the scene was an ' obtrusion ', 
in the sense of a thing unintended ; even accidental 
and unexpected in a certain (non-natural) sense. Thus 



340 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



her advent upon the scheme of creation — to use one 
of their mysterious expressions — was at a late spoiled 
and evil period of the world, which had sunk from the 
'supernatural' into the 'natural'. As woman had 
no part in the earliest world, and as her origin was 
altogether of another nature and from other sources 
than that of man, the traces of her introduction, and 
the hints as to her true character, are to be found 
mystically in the original sign ' Virgo-Scorpio ', double- 
sided (yet identical) at first but afterwards divided. 
These divided ' personalities ' were set thereafter in 
mythologic opposition. The reader is referred to the 
previous Zodiac, fig. 12, where will be found the dia- 
gram illustrative of this idea, which was originated 
amidst the magic of the Syro-Chaldaeans ; it yet 
remains the key to all the mythologies and to all the 
religions . 

The sign ' Virgo-Scorpio ' stands in the present 
order of things, or in this non-angelic or mortal world, 
as a divided sign, because in the ' World of Man ' — 
as ' born of Woman ' — enmity has been placed be- 
tween the ' Snake 5 and the ' Woman '. Thenceforth, 
from the 1 Fall ', and as a consequence of it, they are 
in opposition. The sign of the ' Balances ' is placed 
between, as the rescuing heavenly shield, miraculously 
interposed, separating, as the tremendous 1 Tigis \ 
the two originally conjoint signs, and simultaneously 
presented ' both ways ' (to speak in figure), defending 
' each from destruction by either ' — ' until the time 
shall be complete ! ' — which means the Apocalyptic 
1 New Heaven and New Earth'. 

Marks, movements, or influence from the side of 
' Scorpio ', or from the sinister side, are malign, 
and mean danger ; because they represent the ' Old 
Serpent ', or, in other terms, the 1 Great Deep ', or 
1 Matter '. Of such magic character are the letters 



THE REAL 'CABALA' NEVER WRITTEN 541 



' S ' and ' Z \ and all their compounds ; because this 
originally ' single ' sound, or letter ' S-Z, Z-S came 
into the world representing its sinful side. Man is 
pardoned through the ' Promise to the Woman 
and ' Woman ' is saved because through her the 

* Saviour of the World \ or the ' Rescuer of the World 
or the ' Deified Man or the ' Sacrifice came into 
the world. Woman has the intermediate office of 
reconciling and consoling. In the abstract sense, as 
' virgo intacta 9 (or holy unknowing means), woman 
is free and unconscious of that deadly ' Original Sin \ 
which in the disobedience to the Divine Command 
(to refrain from that ' Fruit ' with 1 Eve \ or with 
the ' Natural Woman '), lost ' Man ' his place in the 
scheme of the ' Immortal World ' . All this is part 
of the cabalistic view of the Mysteries of Creation. 
The Cabalists say that the ' Lost Man ' Adam should 
not have yielded to those which he found the irresistible 
fascinations of Eve, but should have contented him- 
self — to speak in parable — with 1 his enjoined, other 
impersonated delights \ whom he outraged in this 
preference, winning 1 Death 1 as its punishment. We 
conceal, under this term, a great Rosicrucian mystery, 
which we determine to be excused explaining more 
particularly, and which must ever remain at its safest 
in the impossibility of belief of it. This is of course 
obscure, because it is a part of the secret, unwritten 
Cabala, never spoken of in direct words — never referred 
to except in parable. 

In the views of the refining Gnostics, woman is 
the accidental unknowing 1 obtrusion ' upon the uni- 
versal design. The ideal woman (as 1 ideal virgin ') 
is spiritually free (because of her nothingness except 

* possessed ') from the curse and corruption of things 
material. From these ideas came the powers super- 
stitiously imagined to be possible in the virgin 



344 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



state, and capable of being exercised by virgin 
woman. 

All the marks and forms connected with these 
proscribed letters ' S ' and ' Z ' have, on their material 
and worldly side, the character of charms, sigils, and 
talismans, in the evil sense, or dark sense. They were 
supposed to be means of magic by the old soothsayers. 
The celebrated Lord Monboddo produced a very 
elaborate treatise — quite contrary to recognized ideas 
— to show that speech was not natural to Man, but 
that language was a result of the Primeval Fall, and 
that the punishment of Babel signified the acquisition 
of the tongues, and not the ' confusion of language \ 
This idea is sufficiently startling. 

A general display of the ' Esses ' (S.S.) and the 
1 Zeds ' (Z.Z), and their involutions, combinations, 
and sounds in all languages, would result in a per- 
suasion of their serpentine origin. The forms of these 
snake-like glyphs and their cursive lines in all the 
alphabets will, on examination, present the same 
suspicious undulation. These letters have an inti- 
mate refluent connexion with all the signs which 
mean the ' Sea the 1 Great Deep ', 1 Matter in the 
abstract ', or the ' Personified Receptive Feminine 
Principle which eventually is to be the Conqueror 
of the 'Dragon' or 'Enemy'. We thus desire to 
show the unity of the myths and the forms made use 
of for the expression of religious ideas in the glory of 
' Woman ' . Woman, in fact, is the maker of Nature ; 
as we know Nature. 

We wish the reader particularly to take notice 
that the above singular notions are in no way shared 
by us, further than as occurring in our account of 
some of the strange reveries of the 1 Illuminati ' or 
* Gnostics ' ; due, therefore, in our comments. 

' I will put enmity between thee and the woman, 



CABALISTIC 'FALL' OF MAN 345 



and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise 
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel ' (Genesis 
hi. 15). 

A careful and critical inspection of all the alphabets 
or letter-forms, whether cursive or fluent, or rigid 
and rectangular — as in the Greek, and still more 
obviously in the Latin — will show that certain ideas 
are expressed pictorially in them. Two principal ideas 
seem to be furtively suggested. These are the upright 
or phallus, and the cross-line or ' snake whether the 
horizontal be undulated or direct. In the Greek 
letters these ideas make the form. The first letters, 
according to the Cabalists, were the original ' Ten 
Signs of the Zodiac which contained mythologically 
the history of the ' making of the world * . These 
' Ten Signs 9 afterwards multiplied and produced 
other broods of letters (when the original magical 
knowledge was veiled) ; some of which were the 
cuneiform and early tree-like alphabets. There seems 
to be an t event ' symbolized or pictured, in the alpha- 
bets. This mystic idea, which is hidden in the hiero- 
glyphics called letters, is supposed by the more pro- 
found of the Talmudists to be the introduction of 
1 Man ■ into the world, through the very fact and in 
the force of his 'Fail', or as arising through the 
' Temptation the chief agent or efficient in which 
is the ' Snake \ Thus every letter is an anagram of 
' Man, Woman, and Snake \ in various phases of the 
story. Each letter has embodied in it the ' Legend 
of the Temptation \ and conceals it safely in a 
'sign'. 

' Ut omnia uno tenore currunt, redeamus ad 
mysticam serpentis significationem. Si igitur sub 
serpentis imagine Phallicum Signum intelligimus, quam 
plana sunt et concinna cuncta pictura lineamenta. 
Neque enim pro Phallo poneretur Serpens nisi res 



346 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



significata cum typo accurate congrueret 9 (Jasher, 
editio secunda, p. 48). 

The late Dr. Donaldson has a dissertation upon 
the word npy, which is translated ' heel 1 in Genesis 
iii. 15. He adduces Jeremiah xiii. 22 , and Nahuni 
iii. 5, and, comparing the words made use of in the 
original, shows that the ' heel ' is a euphemism, as 
are the i feet ' in Isaiah vii. 20. His exhaustive argu- 
ment demonstrates that the part intended to be signi- 
fied by the word is pudenda muliebria. The whole 
proves the extreme importance — in the mythical and 
magical sense — of this unexpected figure, and throws 
quite a new philosophical light on it. These views 
fortify completely our Rosicrucian explanation of 
the origin of the Order of the Garter, and other kindred 
subjects, fully heretofore discussed in our book. This 
significant connexion of the two figures — the phallus 
and the discus — explains the text in Genesis i. 27 : 
1 Male and Female created He them i.e. gladius } 
'sword'; n ?i?^ ' sheath '. In this latter word, the 
part which characterizes the female is used for the 
woman herself. Qy., in this connexion Kebah (' case 
or 1 container or ' deep the Caaba at Mecca, and 
Keb or Cab, standing for Cabala, Kabbala, Gebala, 
Kebla, or 'Ark', or 'Mystery' — the grand central 
point of all religions ? 

A modern learned writer, Thomas Inman, M.D., 
gives the following as an interpretation of the passage : 
' Thou shalt bruise his head y and he shall bruise thy 
heel ' : ' Gloriam f ascini congressio tollit et caput ej us 
humile facit, sed infligit injuriam moritura men tula, 
quum impregnationem efficit et uteri per novas menses 
tumorem profert.' This may explain the reason why 
the cube of the Phrygian Cap, in the ancient sculptures 
of the 1 armed female is worn in reverse, or at the 
back of the head, as shown in figs. 207 and 208, p. 283. 



GASSENDUS AND FLOOD 



347 



The celebrated philosopher, Petrus Gassendus, as- 
sailed the system of Robertus de Fluctibus, or Robert 
Flood, and criticized it at great length, in his work 
entitled Examen in qua Principia Philosophies Roberti 
Fluddi, Medici , reteguntur, published at Paris in 1630. 
But he never really seized the spirit of Flood's system, 
and he wasted his force. He did not comprehend, 
nor could he ever realize, the Rosicrucian views with 
the largeness of insight of a man of great critical 
powers, which Gassendus otherwise undoubtedly poss- 
essed. Gassendus, however, was a prejudiced theo- 
logian, and was ill calculated for a disquisition upon 
a secret philosophy so remote and subtle. Before an 
insight of greater depth, of more readiness, and less 
obstinacy, the difficulties presented by Flood melt 
away, even converting into brilliancy in new proofs. 
His exhaustive logical positions — indeed, the necessity 
of his theorems — are soon recognized by an investi- 
gator, when he shakes off trammels and clears himself 
of prepossessions. But a rapid and complete philos- 
ophical grasp, extraordinary in its decision, is indis- 
pensable. Flood's system is profound, shadowy, 
difficult, and deep-lying. Short of consummate judg- 
ment, and clear, fine mind, in those to whom they 
are submitted, Flood's ideas, in their very strangeness 
and apparent contradiction, startle and bewilder, 
because they contradict all the accepted philosophies, 
or at least all their conclusions, and stand alone. The 
ordinary recognized knowledge, hired from the 
current accumulation, opposes him. Flood's deeper 
teaching, by its very nature, and through the 
character of those from whom it sprung, is secret, 
or at all events evading, where the knowledge is not 
wholly suppressed. 

As an instance of the impossibility of accepting 
Flood's ideas, if these were such, Gassendus charges 



348 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



him with a stupendous puzzle, that of passing the 
entire interpretation of Scripture over, not to the 
Mystics only, but to Alchemy. This is fully com- 
mented upon in the latter part of this work. Gas- 
sendus asserts, as the opinion of Flood, that the key 
of the Bible mysteries is really to be found in the 
processes of alchemy and of the hermetic science ; 
that the mystical sense of Scripture is not otherwise 
explainable than by the ' Philosopher's Stone ' ; and 
that the attainment of the 1 Great Art or of the 
secrets which lie locked, is ' Heaven r 9 in the Rosi- 
crucian profundities. Old and New Testament, and 
their historical accounts, are alike hermetic in this 
respect. The ' Grand Magisterium ' s the ' Great Work ' 
as the Alchemists call it, is mythed by Moses in Genesis, 
in the Deliverance from Egypt, in the Passage of the 
Red Sea, in the Jewish Ceremonial Law, in the Lives 
of the Patriarchs and Prophets, such as Abraham, 
David, Solomon, Jacob, Job. In this manner the 
true Cabalists are supposed to be Alchemists in com- 
mon with the Magi, the Sages, Philosophers, and 
Priests, when these possessed the ' true and only know- 
ledge \ The ' Just Man made Perfect ' is the Alchem- 
ist who, having found the ' Philosopher's Stone 
becomes glorified and immortal by the use of it. To 
be said to ' die ' is when the material elements can 
no longer maintain or cohere. To 1 rise ' is when the 
immaterial life or spark is liberated out of its perish- 
able temporary investment. To be ' glorified ' is 
when the powers, or independence, are attained 
which properly appertain to the supernaturally per- 
fect ' Light into which, like Enoch or Elijah, the 
Rosicrucian is transfigured, and in which he knows 
' all \ can be ' all and do ' all \ It is this 1 draught 
of immortality ' which enables him to assume what 
form he will, by passing through Nature as its master, 



LIGHT AND GOLD 



349 



and renewing his body by means of his art projected 
by Nature through, to the other side of Nature. 

The adept stands in the place of Nature, and does 
that with the obstruction of matter — separating by 
dissolution the pure from the impure — which it takes 
unassisted Nature ages, perhaps, to effect. The Alche- 
mist is supposed to be superior to Nature to that 
extent, that he can pass through it (that is, through 
its appearances), and work on it, and in it, on the 
other side. It is here — in this true Anmia Mundi^ 
or ' Soul of the World ' — that the Alchemist, or Rosi- 
crucian, regathers the light dispersed or shaken out of 
its old broken forms. Gold is the flux of the sunbeams, 
or of light, suffused invisibly and magically into the 
body of the world. Light is sublimated gold rescued 
magically, by invisible stellar attraction, out of the 
material depths. Gold is thus the deposit of light, 
which of itself generates. Light in the celestial world 
is subtle, vaporous, magically exalted gold, or ' spirit 
of flame \ Gold draws and compels inferior natures 
in the metals, and, intensifying and multiplying, 
converts into itself. It is a part of the first-formed 
' Glory ' or ' Splendour of which all objects and all 
souls are points or parts. 

Gassendus asserts that when the Rosicrucians teach 
that the ' Divinity ' is the 1 Light ' or the ' Realizat- 
ion of Creation', displayed from the beginning (A) 
to the end (Q) of the whole visible or comprehensible 
frame, they mean that the Divine Being is not possible 
or existent, according to human idea, unless ' He 
or the ' Original Light is manifested or expressed 
in some special ' comprehensible ' other light or form. 
The ' Second * reflects the glory of the ' First Light 
and is that in which the ' First ' displays. This second 
light, or Anima Mundi, is * Manifestation or the 
' Son as proceeding from the Father \ This synthesis 



350 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



is the light, breath, life, aura, or Sacred Spirit. It is 
the solar or golden alchemical soul, which is the sus- 
tainment and perfection of everything. 

The pendulum of the world beats between inspirat- 
ion and expiration. This is the breath of the angels 
who ' burn and glow ' (scriptural expression), in the 
pulsative access and re-inforcement of the ' soul of the 
world \ This 1 breath of the angels ' is made human 
in the mechanism of the heart, and is eternal ; but 
becomes personal and limited in the ' world of man 9 
— down, in inhalation, to a point, and up, in exhalation, 
from that point. So Jacob Bcehm. All lies between 
hermetic rarefaction and condensation — mortal and 
spiritual both. 

1 Is not the Devil the " Deep Darkness ", or " Mat- 
ter " ? the " terra damnata et maledicta ", which is 
left at the bottom of the process of the Supreme 
Distiller, who condenses and evokes the " Light " 
from out of it ? Is not " Lucifer " the " Lord of the 
False Light ", and the " Splendours of the Visible 
World " ? Can the Prince and Ruler of this Relegate 
or Lower World soar with his imitations ? Can the 
" Adversary " pass into the " Region of God's Light " ? 
Can he rise anew to combat in that Heaven where 
he has already encountered the " Mighty Ones " who 
have driven him down ; and can he there spread 
again, like a cloud, his concentrate darkness ? ' The 
Cabalists and Talmudists aver that Scripture, history, 
fable, and Nature, are alike obscure and unintelligible 
without their interpretation. They aver that the 
Bible is the story of heavenly things put forward in a 
way that can be alone comprehensible by man, and 
that without their Cabala, and the parables in which 
they have chosen to invest its revelation, not religion 
only, but even familiar Nature — the Nature of Things 
and of Men — is unintelligible. 



PROCESS OF METALLIC CONVERSION 351 

It has been a common opinion, and it so remains, 
that there is no such thing as the Philosopher's Stone, 
and that the whole history and accounts of it are a 
dream and a fable. A multitude of ancient and 
modern philosophers have thought otherwise. As to 
the possibility of metals transmuting from one into 
the other, and of the conversion of the whole material 
into gold, Libavius ^brings forward many instances in 
his treatise De Natura Metallonim. He produces 
accounts to this effect out of Geberus, Hermes, 
Arnoldus, Guaccius, Thomas Aquinas (Ad Fratrem, 
c. i.), Bernardus Comes, Joannes Rungius, Baptista 
Porta, Rubeus, Dornesius, Vogelius, Penotus, Quer- 
cetanus, and others. Franciscus Picus, in his book 
De Auro, sec. 3, c. 2, gives eighteen instances in which 
he saw gold produced by alchemical transmutation. 
To those who allege the seeming impossibility, he 
rejoins, that difficult things always seem at first 
impossible, and that even easy things appear im- 
practicable to the unskilled and unknowing. 

The principles and grounds for concluding that 
there may be such an art possible as alchemy we 
shall sum up as follows. Firstly, it is assumed that 
every metal consists of mercury as a common versatile 
and flexible base, from which all metals spring, and 
into which they may be ultimately reduced by art. 
Secondly, the species of metals, and their specific and 
essential forms, are not subject to transmutation, but 
only the individuals ; in other words, what is genera] 
is abstract and invisible, what is particular is concrete 
and visible, and therefore can be acted upon. Thirdly, 
all metals differ, not in their common nature and 
matter, but in their degree of perfection or purity 
towards that invisible ' light ' within everything, 
or celestial ' glory ' or base for objects, which has 
f matter ' as its mask. Fourthly, Art surmounteth 



352 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



and transcendeth Nature ; for Art, directed upon 
Nature, may in a short while perfect that which 
Nature by itself is a thousand years in accomplishing. 
Fifthly, God hath created every metal of its own 
kind, and hath fixed in them a principle of growth, 
especially in the perfect metal gold, which is the 
master of the material, and which in itself has mag- 
netic seed, or magic light, an unseen and heavenly 
power, unknown in this world, but which can by Art 
be evoked, be made to inspire and multiply and take 
in all matter. 

It is said of the alchemical philosophers, that no 
sooner did they attain this precious Stone 1 or ' Power 
man the very knowledge of it, in the magic surprise 
at its existence, delighted them more than aught that 
the world could give. They made greater use of it 
in its supernatural effects upon the human body than 
in turning it upon the base matter, to make s gold ' 
of this latter, which they treated with contempt. 
And in answer to those who would ask what was the 
reason that those supposed greatest of all philosophers 
did not render themselves and their friends rich by a 
process so speedy and thorough, it was rejoined, that 
they wanted not, that they were satisfied in the possess- 
ion of the ability, that they lived in the mind, that they 
rested satisfied in theory and declined practice, that 
they were so overcome and astonished at the immensity 
of the power accorded by God's grace to man, that 
they disdained to become gold-makers to the greedy, 
or suppliers to the possible idle and mischievous 
needy, and that they were afraid to be made the prey 
and sacrifice of avaricious, cruel tyrants ; which would 
be but too surely their fate if they were, through vain- 
glory, or temptation, or avoidable effects of force, to 
make known their wondrous gifts, or to disclose or 
betray the fact of the supernatural method of their 



BRETHREN OF THE ROSY CROSS 353 



existence — clearly at the safest in being disbelieved, 
and being looked upon as lie or delusion. 

Therefore these conclusive reasons, and others 
similar, impelled the Society to hide from the world, 
not only their stupendous art, but also themselves. 
They thus remained (and remain) the unknown, ' in- 
visible ' illuminated ' Rosicrucians, or Brethren of 
the Rosy Cross ; regarding whose presence and intent- 
ions no one knows anything, or ever did know any- 
thing, truly and in reality, although their power has been 
felt in the ages, and still remains unsuspectedly con- 
spicuous : all which we think we have in some 
measure proved. 

And shall still farther establish (we hope), before we 
arrive at the end of our book. 



CHAPTER THE TENTH 



ROSICRUCIAN ' CELESTIAL ' AND ' TERRESTRIAL ' 
(MEANS OF INTERCOMMUNICATION) 

' Conscientious readers will thank the man who states 
accurately that which they agree with, but will be 
almost equally grateful to the man who states clearly 
what they most dissent from. What they want is 
either truth or error ; not a muddle between them. 9 

The reason of the real superlative importance of 
the ideas entertained by people respecting the Rosi- 
crucians, is that they were really magical men, 
appearing like real men ; carrying, in very deed, 
through the world eternally forbidden secrets — safe, 
however, in the fact that they were sure never to 
be believed. De Quincey, who has written the most 
lucid and intelligible (until this present work) specu- 
lation concerning these profoundest of mystics ; and 
which account, though (most naturally) humanly 
lucid and intelligible — groping as it were at the claims 
of these men — is yet as far from the truth and as 
different to the real beliefs of the Rosicrucians as dark- 
ness is from light * De Quincey says, in exemplificat- 
ion of the grandeur of their mystery : ' To be hidden 
amidst crowds is sublime. To come down hidden 
amongst crowds from distant generations is doubly 
sublime.* This appears in The London Magazine 
of 1821 ; reprinted, corrected, enlarged, and greatly 
improved in the last edition of his collected works in 

volumes, published by Groombridge, Paternoster 

354 



BHUDDIST, OR BUDDHIST, REVERIES 355 



Row. De Quincey, Works, Vol. 6 : Secret Societies, 
P- 235. 

It is very little reflected upon, but it is no less a 
truth, which (because profound) is therefore contra- 
dictory — that if you take away Man from out the 
universe, that no universe remains. There cannot be 
any proof of there being anything outside of us when 
you take away Man, to whom alone the world is. 
For to any other intelligence than Man's, the world 
real cannot be. And hence arises a curious question. 
It is, whether space as occurring as an idea in sleep 
(which implies time) would be real space ? The truth 
of time, and of space, depend alone upon this question. 
Consider the depth of void (' something ') into which 
thought has the power to extend. Consider the pre- 
posterous (in our senses) wall of separation (utterly 
impossible to our possible) which divides living 
human life (or ' living possibility ') from the life (and 
the ' possibility ') of the world even next-off this world. 
Not to speak of possibly multitudinous other worlds 
(or other possibilities), which stretch — for all we know 
to the contrary — we know not whither. And these 
4 possibilities ' or metaphysical intelligible worlds — of 
what kind, of what nature, or of what (whether pleasant 
or unpleasant) character we can conceive not. We 
understand not what they are ; or how they are ; or 
why they are. Indeed — penetrating down to this 
truth — we know not why we ourselves exist, or what 
we are. For we, that is, the human race, are not 
intelligible. Creation is not intelligible. That single 
word somehow alone covers the whole of our knowledge. 
The entire ground next-off this ground of senses (or of 
nature) is wholly conjecture. Nature itself — away 
from us y and not us — may be * unnatural for all 
we know to the contrary. For Man himself is only a 
' Phenomenon \ and He alone makes nature, which 



356 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



exists not without Him. All the foregoing is the 
groundwork of the arguments of the deep Buddhists 
in regard to the real nature of things. 

The result of all these sound and only possible 
philosophical conclusions is, that there is nothing left 
for man but entire submission — entire subjection to 
the Unknown Power — the humbleness of the Un- 
knowing Child. And herein we see the force of 
that dictum of the Saviour : ' Unless ye become as one 
of These ' (little children), ' ye shall in nowise see the 
Kingdom of God/ Certainly, we are unable to know 
absolutely (that is, philosophically) that we ourselves 
exist. (Berkeley, in showing that our senses are only 
medium,, but not means, implied that we did not exist.) 
By a side-glance, as it were, we can suspect whether 
' Life ' itself be only a ' grand Dream ' which may be, 
or be not ; be anything, or be nothing. There is no such 
thing as pain or pleasure, radically ; without a medium 
which makes it pain or pleasure. And both are only 
' disturbance \ made pain or pleasure /; '0 7H W ithout. 
Our pain may be pleasure in another differently-con- 
stituted nervous method (or medium of) existence. 
Our pleasures may be pains (or penalties) elsewhere. 
This possibility, which is the foundation of super- 
naturalism — or of the doctrine of the 1 intelligent 
population of the elements ' — proves that pain and 
pleasure, and the countless shades between them, 
necessitate the idea of body, or of capacity, of some 
kind or other : because capacity is 1 state \ and state 
is 'material'. So says Paracelsus; so says Van 
Helmont ; so says Jacob Bcehm. Nothing can be 
anything, unless it is fixed in something material. 

Hume, in demonstrating that in reality there is 
1 no connexion between cause and effect \ proved 
that there is some delusion between cause and effect ; 
and therefore that life may be a dream. Benedictus 



BUDDHIST IDEALITY 



357 



Spinoza, in his merciless logic, although he was a 
man so interpenetrated with the idea of Deity as to 
be called ' The God-intoxicated man ', proved that 
God must be ' Matter ' ; in evaporating, or exhaust- 
ing, or 1 calculating Kim the closest out of His own 
works \ So much for the audacity of mind — mind 
which is ' knowledge ', knowledge which is the ' devil ' ; 
the devil which is the ' denier \ Our highest know- 
ledge — the most refined ' sum-up ' of the thinnest- 
sifted (until disappearing, evanishing) metaphysics, is 
peremptorily passed back upon us when we essay 
beyond the frontier of f second causes \ All is guess 
over that brink. All is cloud where this pathway — 
turn which way we will — ends. Man's human arms 
are insufficient to lift as ' weights ' aught than second 
causes — ( caused causes '. He falls asleep, helpless, 
when the Great Veil is dropped over him to insulate 
his understanding. All is possible in ' sleep ', because 
' dreams ' are in sleep. God is in sleep. And God, 
who is in sleep, although He is a reality away from 
us, is a delusion, when sought to be demonstrated to 
us. And sleep, which is men's thoughts, or rather 
the dreams are that are in his (man's sleep), is the 
stumbling-block over which the whole comprehensible 
theory of man parts into nothing and falls into 
absurdity ; as in which dream he is himself alone, 
perhaps, made. These general ideas of the profound 
constitute the ' Bythos ' of the Gnostics, and the 
'Maya', or annihilation, of the Buddhists — however 
defectively interpreted heretofore, where these sublime 
subjects have not been wholly misunderstood or 
thought absurd — 

Firstly. — In the affairs of God Almighty and the 
world there is some mighty reason — ab extra — which 
contradicts itself ; inasmuch as it contradicts reason 
— having no reason. But because it contradicts reason, 



358 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



it proves itself to have a reason — divine and above 
reason — which is human ; that is, intelligible only. 
It follows from this, logically, (even) — that in being 
' unintelligible ' it is master of the ' intelligible '. 
Therefore ' miracle ' is superior to ' reality ' . 
Because miracle is true (being impossibility and wonder), 
and reality is untrue, being possible, and therefore 
limited (in the face of the illimitable). Reality (reason) 
is satisfied, and complete, and 1 full ' — so to speak. 
While the ' impossible and therefore the ' super- 
natural must be true, because it encloses nature : 
which is only intelligible up to its certain point of nature. 
(But not beyond.) Nature itself being yet to be accounted 
for — inasmuch as nature is not reasonable. What 
is truth ? There is no truth — inasmuch as nature 
itself, which must necessarily be the basis of every- 
thing, is not true truth, but only apparent truth. 

Secondly. — So long as Nature must have a ' farther ' 
— or a ' whereto ' — beyond the present apparent 
1 whole ' (and forward to which, in the necessity of 
things it must pass) — it may be reasonable — that is, 
all of truth apparent. (The Cabalists (Rosicrucians, 
the Brothers of the 1 Crucified Rose ') say that 
' Man ' is unintelligible, that ' Nature ' is unintelligible, 
that the Old Testament, with its Genesis, its Penta- 
teuch ; that the New Testament, with Christianity and 
the ' Scheme of Redemption that all is unintelligible 
without their secret — to the world wholly forbidden — 
'interpretation'). But it cannot be true truth; 
or abstract, positive truth. Man is made. Man is 
not a maker. In other words, man gets nothing that 
is outside of him. He only obtains that which is already 
in him. He is in his world. He is of his world. But 
he is not of another world. His helplessness — un- 
supported — is perfectly ridiculous. He only lives — 
forgetting himself. He ' falls asleep \ blindly ' into 



'FREE-WILL' AND 'NECESSITY' 359 



his morrow \ If he had independent power he would 
not do this. He would know his 'morrow'. (This 
is the contention of the Buddhists.) 

Now, in regard of real truth, it has been settled 
for very many ages that there is no possibility of 
there ever being such. 1 Cogito ; ergo sum! I am ; 
because I am. Existent only to the periphery of 
consciousness — no more. 

Thirdly. — For there is something in the ring out- 
side which (converging) makes the centre — or, in 
other words, that creates consciousness. That which 
insulates is greater than that which it insulates. 
' Power ' is only escaped 1 Rest \ The ' Living ' 
out of the 'Dead'. 

Fourthly. — Thus impossibility, alone, makes poss- 
ibility POSSIBLE. 

Fifthly. — The ' made ' cannot know its ' maker ' ; 
otherwise it would be ' its maker itself ' . For the 
Maker knows that which It (He) makes, up to the 
farthest possible limit of its making or prolongation. 
Every man's morrow (not yet arrived at him) is 
already past to the Superior Intelligence that is 
altogether independent of ' morrows ' — that is, ordinary 
morrows. ' The Angels have their manacles on the 
wrists of the Men-Movers.' Men think they act 
their own intentions ; but in reality they act other 
agents' intentions. In this ' delusion ' perhaps lies the 
reconcilement of that unresolvable puzzle by Man — at 
least, in his waking, or real, state — ' Free- Will ' and 
' Necessity '. Free-will is ' necessity ' upwards, while 
necessity is ' free-will ' downwards ; or mutual 
reversal of the ends of the same lever — God's intent- 
ions. This is as far as Man is concerned ; for Fate 
is Fate as regards the universal frame of things ; the 
human reason being capable of grasping no possibility 
otherwise. 



CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH 



THE PRE- AD AMITES . PROFOUND CABALISTIC OR 
ROSICRUCIAN SPECULATIONS 

The monastic or separate (sexual) state, where nature 
is ignored and its suggestions and the indulgence of 
the seductive individual appetite is held to be ruinous 
(to the spiritual aims of the human creature), is a 
dangerous — nay, almost an impossible abnegation. 
From the spirit-side, in this respect, nature is held 
abominable. Its practice is the shutting of the 
heavenly door. Thus fleshly incitements are awful ; 
and yet — such are the contradictions of nature — they 
are necessitated. We must ' whip ' the body, as it 
were, ' into wood ' before we can drive the devi] 
therefrom. 1 We must fast and watch, and watch 
and fast. We must reduce our robustness into lean- 
ness. Our physical graceful, worthy or handsome 
' selves we must punish down into everything that 
is incapable and pitiable. We must become pitiless 
in our body's own maceration and mortification. 
Meanwhile (in faith, and in reliance on the efficacy of 
our penances) we grow into holiness — intensifying 
into saint-hood. The lights of the soul are to shine 
through the rents and fractures of the flagellated and 
punished body, until the fleshly sense or enchantment 
and enticement is trampled-up, through the destruc- 
tion of its medium, into life other than this life. 

But truly, in this view, the necessities — or rather 
the requirements — of nature cannot be set at naught 
1 And thereout. 

3C0 



CURIOUS PHYSICAL FACTS , 361 

— cannot be contended with. Religion evades this 
question. Men suffer to a very grievous extent. To 
descend to realities in this living world of flesh of 
ours. Farther, however, in natural arrangements. 
The most cruel nervous disorders, such as the juror 
uterinus, hysteric spasms, and a whole train of venge- 
ful mischiefs, chiefly attack such women as have 
throughout life refused the pleasures of love. Many 
fatal affections, such as mania, epilepsy, and so on, 
prey upon those of both sexes who have imposed upon 
themselves too severe refraining or bridling. This 
incidence is ingrain in nature. But the dangers re- 
sulting from the abuse of these amiable pleasures are 
much more formidable. Pp. 38, 39, of Curiositates 
Eroticce Physiologies (1875). Woman's physical con- 
stitution adapts her for love. ' Excitements more 
numerous, and of more exquisite sense, are bestowed, 
on Woman ' — Casanova, Physiology, 1865, p. 78, 
quoting from Swedenborg. ' Polarity of the Two 
Sexes — Vito-electro galvanic. Attractive power is 
effected from within' — Casanova (1865), p. 25. 'The 
slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the 
soul ' — Grindon, on ' Life ' — Casanova, Physiology, p. 
39. But (until proven) she is rigid, and to a certain 
extent (like virgins usually) insensate, and even 
rebelliously irresponsive. 

All the ' pittoresques ', to the number of twelve, 
invented by the Greek courtesan Cyrene, as being 
the best in which to signalize that particular loving 
mystery which has everything (enjoined) under it ; 
all those enchanting modes of sympathy which Phy- 
leiris and Ashyanase published, which Elephaseus 
composed in Leonine verse, and which afterwards the 
Roman Emperor Nero caused to be painted on the 
Walls of the Imperial Banquetting Hall, in his famous 
Golden Palace, by the first artists of Rome, all these 



362 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



prove that women are much better adepts in the ars 
amandi and its mysteries than men — that they have 
a much keener relish for its intricacies, to which they 
deliver themselves up — with the chosen object — with 
a delight and abandon unknown to man. In short, 
in all the solicitation of love, women are the most 
inventive, assiduous, intense and persevering. Cathe- 
rine the Second of Russia possessed boundless power. 
She set no limits to her gratification in the sensual 
respect. She was imperial and magnificent in her 
luxurious enormities. Her will was law — she was the 
' modern Messalina ' ; she richly earned the title 
which was accorded to her of literally being (no small 
distinction in its way) ' la ftiii futatrice net mondo \ 
But, on the other hand, there were wonderful contra- 
dictions to this state of irregular eagerness. Maria 
(Mariana) Coanel, wife of Juan de la Cerda, not being 
able to bear the absence of her husband, preferred 
committing suicide to yielding to the otherwise irre- 
sistible temptations of the flesh — as she found them in 
their occasional assaults. The extraordinary uncon- 
sciousness and ignorance of some women is remark- 
able — however rare ; especially in these, in some re- 
spects, scarcely modest, all-knowing times. Isabella 
Gonzaga, the wife of the Duke of Urbino, passed two 
years with her husband still remaining a virgin ; and 
so great was her ignorance of the matrimonial usage 
that, until enlightened, she had imagined all married 
women lived as she lived ; and she received the new 
knowledge in all simplicity. 

Greek pictorial and statuary art was suffused with 
ideas of matchless and of immortal beauty. The 
curves and undulation of form, the enchanting and 
enchanted art which peopled Grecian landscapes 
with shapes of ravishment and Greek temples with 
wonders : the eye that saw, the hand that traced, 



THE ARTS SUBSERVING MYTHOLOGY 363 

the taste that toned, the delicacy that softened — all 
was exquisite, all was successful. The most intensely 
poetical and subduing (nay, the most religious, moving 
one to tears), and the most gloriously beautiful object 
in the whole universe, is the naked form of a sym- 
metrical woman. This is difficult to understand — 
but it is true. The reason may be — sorrow that such 
a glorious object — Divinity's handiwork, as a ' present ' 
to Man — should perish. Reflect upon matter imme- 
diately following. 

No wonder that the ancients made a woman (thus) 
an object of idolatry. In the excess — in the super- 
excelling — of their refinement, other ideals were 
reached. Beauty became bifurcated (so to express), 
and irregular ; heated as it were into a sinister — a 
devilish (forbidden) temptation, for passion of taste. 
Excess, or a deviating superflux or overdoing, of 
desire supervened. Longing became delirious : be- 
cause ' Lucifer ', or the ' Lost One ' — ' Unchastened 
Presumption ' — had passed his lightning-like availing 
spear of apotheosizing, enchanted, tempting Death 
through the transmuted ' human female body ' ; 
advanced and addressed in its snaring graces to 
Hell's perfectness. 

The ' Sexes ' were ' Two \ But ' Beauty ' was 
' One \ Beards have naught of beauty, apart from 
strength. Beards are barbarous — hence their name. 
Hair is of the beasts, 1 excrementa 9 ; ' tentacula \ The 
Greek artists exercised their talents in the production 
of a kind of beauty mixed of that of the 1 Two Sexes ', 
merging and blending the softness and enchanting 
shapeliness of the one with the aggressive picturesque 
roundness and boldness of the other. Each (separate) 
was the acme of picturelike propriety and grace. But 
the third c Thing ' was a ' New Thing ' — otherwise a 
miracle — a new sensation. Hence Paris, hence Adonis, 



3^4 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



hence Ganymede, hence the loves of Salmacis and 
Hermaphroditus, hence the ' feminine ' Bacchus, hence 
Hylas — hence these deities, in tresses, of neither sex, 
and yet of both. Greek art in this respect presents a 
phenomenon. As a phenomenon we must recognize 
and regard it. The flower is supra-natural, treasonous, 
and abhorrent. It is 'a flower of Hell \ Neverthe- 
less, it is a ' flower ' . And thus the idea dominates 
the alternate ' shaded ' and 1 shining ' halves of the whole 
world ; of all art ; of all philosophy ; of all religion. 
Philosophy must not ignore, or affect not to see, or 
decline hypocritically, or too nicely (not wisely), to 
consider these powerful — these all-powerful — 
factors. This whole round of subjects intimately 
refers to the Rosicrucians, and to their supposed 
' unintelligible ' beliefs. They are intelligible enough 
to the ' knowing ones ' ; but they are not to be 
divulged. 

The most difficult problem of the Greek artists was 
to exercise their talent in the production of a kind of 
beauty mixed with that of the Two Sexes, and time 
has spared some of the masterpieces. Such is the 
figure known under the name of the Hermaphrodite 
{Hermes- Apr odite ; Venus-Mercury). In the classic 
times, both amongst the Greeks and Romans, as also 
in Oriental countries, a cruel and flagitious violation 
of nature (not supposed-so ; even accepted as sacred) 
produced this beauty by enforcing sacrifice of a peculiar 
kind on young male victims. In the case of true Her- 
maphroditism, that which art could only effect by dis- 
possession, nature brings about by super-addition, 
or rather by concurrent transformation or mutual 
' coincidence \ The idea even lies ' perdue 1 (like a 
silver snake) in the supposed origin of Mankind. 
The most extraordinary ideas as to the origin of the 
human race have been entertained by speculative 



PLATONIC DREAMS 365 

thinkers, and by theologians. The celebrated William 
Law believed that the First Human Being was a 
creature combining the characteristics of both sexes 
in his own individual person. c God created man in 
His own Image. In the Image of God created He 
him/ Some controversionists consider that there 
is a long space due (but not allowed) between the 
foregoing and the succeeding : ' Male and Female 
created He them \ 

' Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth.' 
This command was given on the Sixth Day. Eve 
was not created until the Seventh Day. Hence Eve 
must have been born of Adam — or separated from 
him. 1 Ejus autem imago ea est quss exhibetur, ore 
videlicet excellentissimo 3 ut sunt Arnobii verba, et 
specie inter virginem et puerum eximia. Catullus 
hoc idem voluit. Carm. 64. 

Quod enim genus figurae est, ego quod non habuerim ? 
Ego mulier, ego adolescens, ego ephebus, ego puer, 
Ego gymnasii fui flos, ego eram decus olei. 

Marcianus Capella, Lib. i. : 

Atys pulcher item curvi et puer almus aratri. 

Caput autem tectum mithra Phrygem indicate 
Laurentii Pignorii Patavini Magnse Deum Matris 
Idasae et Attidis initia. Amstelodami Andrese Frisii. 

MDCLXIX. 

Admitting, moreover, that the term f Day ' — as 
used in Genesis — is employed to express an indefinite 
period of time, in order to form Woman, God deprived 
Adam of his androgyne character, and reduced him 
to a Being having one sex only. And here steps in 
a fanciful idea of some speculative thinkers ; which 
(however extravagant) is very poetical and beautiful. 
They ask in specifying the question — in serious truth 



366 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

a not-altogether improbable conjecture — whether the 
irresistible inclination and the otherwise mysterious, 
unaccountable drawing-together and sympathy of two 
persons who meet for the first time and find them- 
selves mutually charmed (they cannot tell how or 
why) ; or who even ' hear ' or ' read ' of each other ; 
whether even the continual natural inclination which 
impels ' man to woman ' and ' woman to man ' be not 
the spirit-reflex and the atoning 4 Penance ' (there is 
a great amount of sadness which mingles in the delight 
of these feelings) of the ' Original Grand Human 
Division \ And that this extra-natural (and yet 
natural) inclination which draws One Sex towards the 
Other be not the movements of Fate (lying down deep- 
buried in the necessities of things) ; and that the whole 
is the active tendency and forced (however latent, 
sometimes) searching through the world for the 
' Missed ' and * Lost Half ' (whether feminine, whether 
masculine), to once more embrace and supernaturally 
in rapture in the recognition to become one again ? 
Hence, perhaps (also), that inconstancy and feebleness 
of decision and ' puzzled distress ' (' seeing through 
the glass darkly ') so aboundingly manifest in human 
nature, becoming dramatic in a thousand ways in the 
confusions of history — a stupendous scheme of con- 
tradictions itself. 

May such affinities — and such unsuspected enchant- 
ment in this hard, practical, disbelieving world — lie 
mysteriously deep as the eternal secret of original 
human fellowship and society ? And may even the 
amusement and the wonder of uninterested spectators 
and standers-by arise only from their having the un- 
imagined fact (to them) of dream and magic being 
presented, while this unaccountable show is the 
secret foundation (as dream started at the beginning 
of time) of all the sentimental phenomena of the 



PLATONIC DREAMS 



367 



world ? In all the infinite gradations of love, and 
passion, and sympathy (and in the experience of 
their opposites), we may be witnessing the baffled 
attempts of the whole round of human-nature — of 
the succession of the generations in the centuries — 
life being hopelessly too short, and circumstances 
controlling everything ; we may be seeing the efforts 
of the ' Halves ' to recover ' Each Other \ The 
masculine half of mankind wandering unconsciously 
to find its fellow-feminine, and the female half of the 
human family urging (from its nature) with the still 
more lively and more sensitive, and more acutely 
disappointed at repeated failure — quest. Each sex 
in its half-individuality, and prosecuting through time 
its melancholy 1 penance straining blindly towards 
that ' Shadow the complement and double of ' It- 
self \ Vain indeed in the nature of things must be 
that human search to find, in this world, the super- 
naturally divorced ' Half \ For that other 'Half- 
Self ' originated in ' another world and thence started 
on a ' Dream-Pilgrimage ' as a Shadow, or Spirit, 
recognizable only through the imagination (a mis- 
chievous, deluding faculty) of a real person, to recover 
its other original Half in 'This World \ We doubt, 
indeed, whether in this world (and were the original 
duality of persons true) that in this state of flesh the 
discovery would be welcome, even were discovery 
and recovery possible. Such is the preordainment 
of fate (which has made circumstances), that the 
halves of this first-junction may wander all the world 
over and exhaust the generations, and all time, in 
the search, and yet never meet ; save at that ' Grand 
Assize * or General Resurrection where impend the New 
Heaven and the New Earth ; and at which Final 
Consummation the two parts of the same Unit might 
be united never to be sundered more — complete and 



368 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



summed as the ' One Being ' — sexless in the bosom 
of Divinity ; where there is * neither marriage, nor 
giving in marriage \ 

But the reader will find, in the latter part of the 
book, plausible theories— nay, cogent arguments, 
scarcely to be refuted — not only as to the possible 
(and likely) incorporation of spirits ; but as to the 
difference of sexes among them, with natural incidents, 
and apparently contradictory results from their semi- 
spiritual, semi-bodily Rosicrucian conditions. 

The idea that Adam and Eve were both originally 
Hermaphrodites was revived in the thirteenth cen- 
tury by Amaury de Chartres. He held — among other 
fanciful notions — that at the end of the world — both 
sexes should be re-united in the same person. 

Some learned Rabbis asserted that Adam was 
created double ; that is, with two bodies, one male 
and the other female , joined together by the shoulders ; 
their heads (like those of Janus) looking in opposite 
directions. And that, when God created Eve, He 
only divided such body in Two. Others maintained 
that Adam and Eve were each of them, separately, 
an Hermaphrodite. Other Jewish authorities, among 
whom are Samuel Manasseh and Ben-Israel, are of 
opinion that our Great Progenitor was created with 
Two Bodies, and that ' He ' separated them after- 
wards during Adam's sleep ; an opinion founded by 
these writers upon the second chapter of Genesis, 
verse 21 : the literal translation of the Hebrew being : 
' He (God) separated the Woman from his side, and 
substituted Flesh in her place/ This idea resembles 
that of Plato. Origen, St. Chrysostom, and St. Thomas 
believed that the Woman was not created till the 
Seventh Day. But the most generally received opinion 
is, that Adam and Eve were created on the Sixth. These 
particular notions — extravagant as they must be 



PLATO'S DREAMS 



369 



admitted to be— as to the original ' single-dual, dual- 
single ' characteristics of Adam and Eve are eminently 
Platonic — nay, cabalistic. 

Plato proceeds to account for the love which some 
men have for some women, and vice versa. t The 
males \ he says, ' which are halves of an Androgyne, 
are much given to women \ and the women, which 
are the halves of an Androgyne, are passionately fond 
of men. As for the women 1 (a not uncommon case) 
' who indulge an inclination for their own sex, they are 
the halves of the Androgyne females who were doubled, 
and the men who exhibit a liking for other men are 
the halves of the males who were also doubled. In 
the beginning there were three kinds of Human Be- 
ings, not only the Two which still exist (namely, 
the Male and the Female) — but a Third, which was 
composed of the Two First.' Of this last sex — or 
kind — nothing remains but the tradition, and the 
name. ' The Androgynes, for so they were called, 
had not only both the male and female faces, but also 
possessed the sexual distinctions of both. Of these 
creatures, likewise, nothing now exists but the name, 
which survives as a stigma, and which is considered 
infamous' Nature has made this, the fact • as ' out 
of ' nature. The reason assigned for the different 
shape of these three kinds was that 1 the males were 
formed by the Sun ; the females by the Earth ; and 
the mixed race of Androgynes by the Moon : — 
which partakes both of the Sun and the Earth.' 

Ecclesiastical writers declare that such an Eunuch 
was the Holy Evangelist, St. John, whom Jesus loved 
beyond all His other disciples, who lay upon Jesus' 
bosom ; who, while Peter tardily advanced, flew } 
borne on the wings of virginity, to the Lord ; and 
penetrating into the secrets of the Divine Nativity, 
was emboldened to declare what preceding ages had 

B B 



370 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



been ignorant of. * In the Beginning was the Word. 
And the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God.' Reynardi Opera, vol. viii. p. 252. 

If the disciples of the doctrine of ' evolution ' or 

* selection of the fittest ' are right — if your Darwins, 
your Huxleys, your Herbert Spencers, your Leweses, 
your dense unimaginative men (only specious philos- 
ophers), are correct in their deductions of correlation 
— ' bowing-out God ' 1 as it were (in sublimity of 
fools* not ' mad ' presumption), ' exterior of His 
own Creation - — then reverence, and devotion, and 
martyrdom, and the sacredness, and the magic of 
virginity, must be the merest ludicrous superstition 
and figment. Is Man alone in his world ? Are there 
Others in it with him ? The ancients universally 
held virginity as a real magic, transcendental, mys- 
terious something, which exercised power supematur- 
ally both through Heaven and through Earth. It 
was an unnatural-natural outspring set apart and 
sacred ' of the Gods ' . None but the barbarous 
touch, the brutal touch, could profane it. It worked 
miracles. 

Tis said that the Lion will turn and flee 
From a Maid in the pride of her purity. 

For maidhood and virginity is a phenomenon inde- 
pendent of Creation, and bears through the worlds 
visible and invisible — the worlds immortal — the im- 
press and seal upon its forehead of God's Rest, and 

* Refusal not of His Activity and ' Consent \ 
Hence its sacredness in all religions and under all 
beliefs. ' Voild pourquoi, pendant les persecutions, 
il y eut tant de vierges chretiennes outragees par leurs 
bourreaux, qui ne faisaient qu'appliquer V antique loi 

1 ' Bowing-out or * complimen ting-out ' ; to express in a 
strong figure — but not inapt. 



FORMS OF MARTYRDOM 



37i 



rontame, en vertu de la quelle tine vierge ne pouvait 
pas etre mise a mart. 9 — LAntiquite la phis reculee 
jusqu'd nos jours, par Pierre Dufour, vol. 3, chap, 
i. p. 29. Bruxelles, J. Rosez, 1861. The reason 
for this lies very deep, and is very refined and very 
true. It will be seen, on adequate reflection, that 
the heathen executioners, in exercising their supposed 
human right of death-giving in law, did not dare 
touch the ' property of the Gods ' in death, owing to 
their superstition ; and they therefore made their 
victims ' things ' in ' getting godhood ' (so to speak) 
■ out of them ' before the death-penalty. This was 
the reason why, in the old English executioners' 
practice, women were always burnt or strangled at the 
stake, but not hanged vulgarly like men or dogs. 
It was a tribute to the supposed sacredness of women's 
characteristics, and from the fact of her (phenomenal) 
character. ' Les Juges Paiens qui prenaient un odieux 
plaisir a les f rapper dans ce qu'elles avaient de plus 
cher. Mais leur virginite etait un sacrifice qu'elles 
offraient chastement a Dieu en echange de la couronne 
du martyre. " Une vierge ", disait Saint- Ambroise, 
" peut etre prostituee et non souillee." " Les vierges ", 
dit Saint-Cyprien, " sont comme les fleurs du Jar din 
de Ciel 'V Pierre Dufour. ' Le viol des vierges 
chretiennes ri etait done dans V origine qiCun prelimin- 
aire de la peine capitale, conformement d Vusage de la 
penalite romaine. Vitiatae prius a carnifice dein 
strangulatae.' Suetonius, dans la vie de Tib ere : Pierre 
Dufour. t UHistoire de Prostitution' . 

1 Because Virgins by a received custom were not 
to be strangled, he caused the Hangman first to de- 
flower a Virgin, and then to strangle her \ Tacitus. 
Suetonius. Edward Leigh's Analecta de Priniis Ccesari- 
bus. And when forced, the author might have added, 
became still more glorious flowers (or lights) of Para- 



372 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



dise. We live, in nature, in contradiction — in ' im- 
possibilities ' that make 1 possibilities ' . Our f forms ' 
ignore 'ourselves'. Maidhood is the possibility of 
bearing joy beyond compare (the human-natural joys 
locked therein) — the first, last, and best of this world's 
pleasures — through the world ; and yet withstanding 
the use of it. Refraining in the carrying the precious 
casket from ' one world ' (through the world for which 
it is intended 1 as the temptation ') into ' another world \ 
It is the successful resistance and baffling of the Devil, 
who lures in this mysterious respect, with his most 
exquisite inducement. Hence the reason of our King 
Edward the Confessor being marked as the ' Saint ' ; 
for he ' forbore his wife Edith \ This is the raison 
d'etre of all triumph of the kind. Virginity in itself 
(strangely as it may sound for mankind), though 
without its infraction heaven could not be — for it is 
our senses that make heaven — is a Key of Heaven. 
Hence the inherent sacredness of the — human — 
' Act ' all the world over ; and highest so in the 
religions of the most civilized peoples, those which 
have risen to the highest refinement. Mary Magdalen 
was the first at the tomb of the Redeemer, and was 
the first to whom our Lord showed Himself. It was 
through a woman that our race was rendered possible. 
This must never be forgotten. 

It is not difficult to discover how inveterate the 
belief of their system, which seems naturally to account 
for everything, has become to the Materialists ; who 
(to use a wild figure) have identified the time that has 
got into the watch with the reason that the watch 
goes. Their whole work is the falling-in-love-with 
and believing their own work. It would be cruel to 
make these men believe. It would be the dispossession 
of themselves, out of themselves. Their scope, and 
range, and judgment are an impenetrable world's 



MATERIALISTIC REASONERS 373 



presumption ; working only from the centre outwards 
— as from ' particulars ' to ' generals ' — the false 
way. These accepted reasonable reasoners do not see 
that if God's reasons had been man's reasons man 
would never have been ; because Man has no place 
in reason — he is not reasonable. It is the self-assert- 
ion and the self-presumption that is at fault — mere 
miserable self-conceit produces these men : — volu- 
bility — and reading — provide them with a cloud of 
words wherewith they may (and do) confuse. They 
have dared in their lofty (toppling) philosophical 
climbing — like the men of Babel — or ' Babble ', as the 
tongues afterwards became — forcing into their Heights 
of Metaphysics (as it were) to look down upon God — 
spying Him at His work ! Impious — mad stupidity ; 
— trusting brains, in which the Devil (or Denier) 
forges lies — forgetting that Darkness is only the 
reversed side of Light, as light is only the presented 
side of Darkness — and that Both are the Same. We 
should know no light without darkness, which shows 
us the light ; just in the same way as we see the 
wrong side of the light in seeing the darkness when 
the welcome light appears — so to speak. 

These men want contradiction. They are ruined in 
their own self-esteem. They are floated upward in 
the pride of knowledge — with wings of wax. They 
grope in the debris of nature. Their knowledge is 
scientific knowledge. Knowledge as an acquisition 
to enlighten (its only use) is as ashes with the fire all 
out of it — fire which is faith. These philosophers are 
converted into the vehicle of the comprehension of 
their own theories : and there they rest, absorbed 
and occupied in these alone. Self-centred, complete, 
satisfied, distrustless, they fortify themselves in their 
triumph, and become incompetent to see aught that 
shall challenge their own fixed ideas. In regard to 



374 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



these merely scientific people, an apt and a forcible 
remark has been made : ' Natural selection can only 
preserve such slight variations as are immediately 
useful. It cannot provide a savage with brain suited 
to the remote needs of his civilized descendants some 
thousands of years later.' All is progressive, and all 
is development, with these philosophers. They have 
no idea of cataclysm. When the whole world is the 
offspring — when the mountains, with the mutilated 
and the riven faces which they present to us, are 
the children — thunderstricken — of the Intelligent 
(sudden to the world sometimes, snapping * gradat- 
ions ' and 1 evolutions ' with miracle), Master, Guide 
and God of All ! 1 Thinkest thou that those skies 
have forgotten to be in earnest, because thou goest 
mouthing through the world like an ape ? ' Be what you 
wish to be then, and go down into the dust ! Very 
probably your fate it may prove to be ; though it 
may be the lot of some others to escape. By humble- 
ness — by faith ! 

Revelation and supernatural disclosure, quite differ- 
ent to progress and circumstantial natural advance 
— as the * nature of nature ' — are to be inferred from 
the apparition of certain deplorable maladies — diseases 
which puzzle and bewilder as to their true character ; 
which lead us astray, sometimes, as to their likeliest 
best treatment. The ideas of the Rosicrucians 
as to the real (hidden and unsuspected) origin of these 
diseases, which seem — large as is the catalogue of 
maladies — so contrary to all the physiological, natural 
groundwork upon which (so to say) man's health and 
healthy exercise of his nature expand and expound, 
are speculative and recherche in the extreme. Such 
querists ask in vain where such diseases — so moment- 
ous, so super-horrid — could have first sprung. Philos- 
ophers of this class affirm that there is nothing of 



PRETERNATURAL DECLENSION 



375 



these in the true character of man. That these diseases 
stand aloof, and are of themselves. That they bear 
in themselves proofs of the indignation (intelligent) 
exterior to man ; to some violent invasion and inver- 
sion — to some inappeasable outrage of God's law. 
Flesh and blood has become an accursed — a super- 
accursed weed, from the devils having gained access 
to it. Man's unholy passions have hurried him into 
an abyss of physical perdition, wherein he has oblit- 
erated his ' image ' and gifts, and done things (worse 
than the beasts) beyond the laws of his impress ; wide 
already as the area of the exercise of those laws was, 
even for evil. The penalty has pursued the original 
guilt through the generations and still survives ; be- 
cause Man has dared to intrude into the ' Disorders 
of Darkness ', and brought back out of Orcus and 
made physical guilt and horror which were the property 
of the devils and within the compass of their range, 
alone, of accursed activity, but which were not for 
him — were not naturally for him. Hence the marks 
and tokens of this supernatural ' cancer some of the 
imported effects — otherwise lying out of his reach as 
being far above what his limited nature could endure 
without utter consumption of itself — of the 1 First 
Fall \ Conquest is wide-spread just according to the 
weakness and incidence of the subjected. Fire finds 
its easy prey in dry leaves and in light combustible. 
These ' immortal-mortal ' diseases spread and ramified, 
and spread and ramify (though with diminution 
now), with an extension, and with a vigour, just in 
the proportion of the necessitated surrender arising 
from the incompetency and inability to resist ; these 
hitherto supersensual and supernatural terrors had 
found an access into this real world of body, and 
there the disaster revelled in its appropriate forms in 
its newly-found dominion. ' The imagination of man 



376 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



is evil continually/ There are blots and imperfections 
which have fastened upon Man's very mortal com- 
position or body. His nature is struggling to free itself 
of the contagion. But the poison is not poison of 
this world. The generations suffer in all the crowd 
forward — in all their procession and replication for 
the sin — for the unbelievable sin — for the wanton, 
out-of-the-way wickedness of predecessors. This is 
the theory as to the origin of certain diseases, which 
are considered ' not human ' ; but which have been 
conveyed-to, and are inherited by, those who have no 
affinity with these inflictions by their nature or by 
the intentions of the ' Exterior Providence \ Man 
has brought all this upon himself, as farther fruits 
and newer penalties arising from the First Great Lapse, 
and in farther proof, in still more degrading and still 
more disfiguring decadence, of the imbibing of the 
first sweet poison — so deliciously and yet so treacher- 
ously (lecherously) brewed by the First Great Tempter : 
— Nameless — Anonymous — with ' Its ' Janus Mask, 
and offering to that ' Phenomenon \ man, under ' Its ' 
many ' Names \ Man is another ruin, perhaps, in a 
series of several previous ruins, of which mortality 
has lost all trace. 

The terms superstition and science are counter- 
changed. In reality science may be the superstition, 
and superstition the truth (otherwise the ' science 
assumed as truth). Scientific men are the most super- 
stitious of any class, for they have raised an idol which 
they call science, and therefore truth (why, therefore, 
forsooth ?) ; and they have fallen down and wor- 
shipped Science (their own ignorance) as God. They 
have taken themselves out of themselves, and wor- 
shipped ' themselves ' — otherwise their heads, instead 
of their hearts ; their reason (their head), which is no 
reason (no head) really, instead of their hearts, or 



PIERRE DUFOUR QUOTED 



377 



their emotions and instincts ; which are true, and 
which are infallible — because they contradict the 
apparent and the reasonable, which is never true. 
Hence we cannot know God through God, or rather 
through the Intellect ; but we must know God through 
the ' Saviour or through the heart or affections ; 
which entity, or sum of heart and affections, is Second 
God, or Man ' in the image etc. The Third ' Person ' 
of the Trinity is the Holy Ghost, or < Recognition ' 
in which ' Both ' are — ' Seen in the Spirit wherein, 
and absorbing the ' Two Others \ is interfluent, miracu- 
lous, instant union and ' Assumption ' of God and 
Means, in ' Belief \ This is the groundwork of all 
religious systems. God's anger (the ' denunciation ' 
or the ' shaking-off ' by the All-Pure and the All- 
Powerful) is shown in those immortal (become fleshly), 
or ' Spirit-Cancers ' (so to speak), imported, as adaptat- 
ions to the nature of physical man, into body-corporate 
(that is, intelligible) : the supernatural become natural. 

' Enfin, un des plus grands hommes qui aient porte le flambeau 
dans les tenebres de Fart medical : Grand Chirurgie (liv. i. ch. 7) : 
" La verole dit-il avec cette conviction que la genie peut seul 
donner, " a pris son origine dans le commerce impur d'un Francais 
lepreux avec une cour tisane qui avait des bubons veneriens, laquelle 
infecta ensuite tous ceux qui eurent affaire a elle. C'est ainsi 
continue cet habile et audacieux observateur, " c'est ainsi que la 
verole, provenue de la lepre et des bubons veneriens, a peu pres 
comme la race des mulets est sortie de l'accouplement d'un cheval 
et d'une anesse, se repandit par contagion dans tout Funivexs." 
Paracelse considerait, done, le verole de 1494 comme " un genre 
nouveau dans l'antique famille des maladies veneriennes." ' Pierre 
Dufour, tome quatrieme, p. 292. 

' Un saint laique ', dit Jean Baptiste van Helmont dans son 
Tumulus Pestis, ' tachant de diviner pourquoi la v6role avait paru 
au siecle passe et non auparavant, fut ravi en esprit et eut une 
vision d'une jument rongee du farcin, d'oii il soupconna qu'au 
siege de Naples, ou cette maladie parut pour la premiere fois, 
quelque homme avait eu un commerce abominable avec une bete 
de cette espece attaquee du merae mal, et qu'ensuite, par un effet 



378 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



de la justice divine, il avait malheureusement infecte le genre 
humain.' Pierre Dufour, tome quatrieme, chap. xx. p. 292. 

' Manardi, Mathiole, Brassavola, et Paracelse disent que l'in- 
fection venerienne est nee de la lepre et de la prostitution.' Pierre 
Dufour, tome quatrieme, p. 297 (8vo edition). 

Nothing can exceed the importance of the foregoing 
observations in regard to the welfare (bodily and 
spiritually) of Man ; especially in these questioning, 
inquisitive modern times, when everything is brought 
to the front, and remorselessly (although often 
foolishly, because conceitedly) canvassed. Such 
names as the great (much-libelled) Paracelsus, the 
prince of chemists and physiologists, and that of Van 
Helmont, the most subtle and profound of magnetists 
and psychologists, secure attention among the best- 
informed, and carry their own consummate guarantee 
— the most convincingly to the adepts. Men of 
reflection are needed to comprehend these theories 
and speculations, and to weigh this evidence. 



CHAPTER THE TWELFTH 



THE ADAPTED ROSICRUCIAN CONTEMPLATION. INTRU- 
SION OF SIN. RUINS OF THE OLD WORLDS 

The extraordinary philosophy of the Rosicrucians 
(and of the Rosicrucian system) is best explained 
(though it is all erroneous as to the true meanings of 
the Brothers of the ' R. C) through the following 
charges which were brought forward to the disparage- 
ment of these famous men. Petri Gassendi Theologi 
Epistolica Exercitatio. In qua Principia Philoso- 
phic? Roberti Fluddi Medici reteguntur. Parisiis, apud 
Sebastianum Cramoisy, via Jacobaea sub Ciconiis, 
M.DC.XXX. 

' Primo. Totam scripturam sacram referri ad alchymiam, et 
principia alchymistica. Sensum scripture mysticum non esse alium, 
quam explicatum per alchymiam, et philosophicum lapidem. Non 
interesse ad ilium habendum cujus religionis sis, Romanae, Luthera- 
ns, aut alterius. Catholicum ilium solum esse, qui credit in Lapi- 
dem Catholicum, hoc est Philosophicum, cujus ope homines Daemonia 
ejiciant, linguis loquantur novis, etc. 

' Second. Cum Deus sit quaedam Lux per totum mundum 
diffusa, ilium tamen non ingredi in ullam rem, nisi privs assumpserit 
quasi vestem spiritum quendam aethereum, qualis opera alchymiae 
extrahitur, et quinta essentia vocatur. Facere proinde Deum 
compositionem cum hoc spiritu aethereo. Residere cum illo prae- 
sertim in sole, unde evibretur ad generationem, et vivificationem 
omnium rerum. Deum hoc modo esse formam omnium rerum, et 
ita agere omnia, ut causae secundae per se nihil agant. 

' Tertio. Compositum ex Deo, et Spiritu isto ^Ethereo esse 
animam mundi. Purissimam partem hujus animae esse naturam 
angelicam, et ccelum empyreum, quod intelligatur permistum esse 
omnibus rebus. Daemones etiam particulas esse ejusdem essentise, 
sed malignae materiae alligatas. Omnes animas tarn hominum, quam 

379 



38o 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



brutorum, nihil esse aliud, quam particulas ejusdem animae. Eandem 
animam esse Angelum Michaelem, seu Mitattron. 

' Quarto. Quod est amplios, eandem mundi animam esse verum 
Messiam, Salvatorem, Christum, Lapidem Angularem, et Petram 
universalem, supra quam Ecclesia, et tota salus fundata sit. Hanc 
nempe esse praecipuam partem Philosophici Lapidis, quaecum 
addensata rubescat, exinde dicatur esse sanguis Christi, quo 
emundati, etredempti sumus. Neque enim nos emundari sanguine 
Christi humano, sed hoc divino, et mystico. 

' Quinto. Hominem justum esse alchymistam, qui Philosophico 
Lapide invento, Alius usu immortalis fiat. Mori tamen dici, cum 
partes corruptibiles abijicit ; Resurgere, cum fit incorruptibilis ; 
Glorirlcari, cum proinde easdem dotes assequitur, quae tribuuntur 
corporibus gloriosis. Homines quihuc evaserint " Fratres Crucis 
Rose.e " dictos, scire omnia, posse omnia, non arbitrari rapinam 
esse se equales Deo, cum eadem in illis sit mens, quae in Christo 
Jesu. 

' Sexto. Creationem none esse productionem rei ex nihilo, ut 
nos vulgo intelligimus nihil. Materiam (quam saepissime tenebras 
vocant) esse id, quod proprie appelletur nihil ; ac proinde cum Deus 
dicitur creare, aut facere aliquid ex nihilo, intelligi creare, aut 
facere ex materia. Moysen, cum Creationem Mundi descripsit, 
fuisse alchymistam, itemque Davidem, Salomonem, Jacob, Job, 
et omnes alios ; adeo ut etiam veri Cabbalistae nihil aliud quam 
alchymistam sint ; itemque Magi, sapientes, philosophi, sacerdotes, 
et alii.' Marinus Mersennus significantly adds : ' Quaeso autem, 
nisi ista sunt impia, quid potest esse impium ? ' 

In the first place, the whole of the Sacred Scriptures 
are a grand mystical puzzle referring to alchemy, 
and to the universal alchemic process. The mystical 
sense of the Old and the New Testaments is none other 
than the history of alchemy — originated in the 
Cabala (with the secrets contained therein), and the 
rationale of that called 'The Philosophers' Stone'. 
It matters not to the question of these secrets fixed 
what religions be professed ; whether Christian, 
whether those of the 1 Sects \ whether infidel and 
heathen. That only is t Catholic ' which lies in the 
1 Stone 9 — otherwise practical magic ; whereby Demons 
are commanded, good spirits evoked, and the innermost 



'SUPERNATURAL TRANSLATION 381 

hidden resources of nature, and the Spirits of Nature, 
laid bare and availed-of. 

Secondly. — When Deity is said to be ' Light per- 
vading and vivifying all nature, He enters not in any- 
thing unless a mask of the object is adopted as the 
medium in which He fixes. This aura (or the deli- 
quescence of the uproused light) is the infinite Ethereal 
Spirit. The spring or the moving spirits, or the means, 
of alchemy evolve out of it. They are fivefold in their 
exercise or delimitation. God is indeed identical 
with this supreme spirit. And the radiant or intense 
material-nucleus is the lucid conflux-spot or the Sun : 
stored (by its spirits) with vigour, sensitiveness, and 
intelligence. From this Intense Centre or Fiery Blaze 
of Power (the Sun), agitations and life vibrate in master- 
dom from the middle-point to circumference. God^ 
thus, in producing, is said to be identified with Matter, 
and He so fills (and is) that there are not (nor can 
there be) secondary causes, except to Man ; who can 
only know second causes. This, be it noted, is 
' Berkeleyism ' on the one side, and its opposite, or 
' Spinozism on the other — both being the same thing 
in reality ; looked at from either side ; or from before 
and from behind. 

Thirdly. — Composed of this ' mask and of this 
infinite medium or Divine Movement, is the general 
investment (or spirit) called the ' Soul of the World \ 
The purer part of this sensitive, responsive soul is, 
in its own nature, of the breath of the angels (for ' the 
Angels were made 1 ). The anima mundi is the Flaming 
Spiritual Region, in which all things live. Even the 
devils are portions of this efflux, which is the general 
life. But the Rebellious Spirits (the vis inertice, or 
the laziness, so to speak) of matter — dense, contradict- 
ory, inaccessible — are buried or lost — and were after- 
wards chained — in inapprehensive matter. All partic- 



382 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



ular ' sentiences ' — whether of the brutes or man — 
are nothing other than parts of the whole lucid spirit. 
Of the same soul (in essence) is the Archangel Michael, 
or Mitattron. Also all the Angels in their Sevenfold 
Regions ; both of the Bad, and of the Good ; of the 
Dexter and of the Sinister Sides of Creation. 

Fourthly. — Which is still more dreadful (in appear- 
ance), the same anima mundi, or Soul of the World, 
is the real Messiah, Saviour, Christ, the ' Corner- 
stone of the Temple \ the ' Temple ' itself (the universe) 
the * Stone ' (Petram Universale™) , or ' Rock ' (Peter 
— St. Peter), upon which the Church, and Salvation, 
is founded. This is the mystical end and scope of that 
longed-for Beatitude — or Magical Transfiguration — 
the ' Philosophers' Stone or ' Foundation \ Which 
(being to be obtained 1 out of the material 1 by ' super- 
natural ' means) when contracted into itself, and con- 
centrated and intensified, glows (or martyrises) into 
flaming red, or possession, or Glorified Agony (made 
Heaven). From thence it is said to be the ' Blood ' 
of Christ (and the ' Cross ' of Christ), which ' blood • 
was shed for the redemption of the world from the 
penalties of the (First ?) Fall (by Which We Are). 
By means of the ' Great Sacrifice ' mortality is purged 
into purity back into the celestial fire, and redeemed 
from Hell or Matter. However, we are not redeemed 
by the blood of a ' Human ' Christ, but by the atoning 
blood in a divine and mystical sense. (See correspond- 
ing plates.) 

Fire is contention — whether holy or unholy. Heat, 
intensified in the struggle, agitates furiously to Fire. 
Fire, triumphing and mastering the matter which 
lends it its material and strength, when passing into 
victory brandishes into the calm and the glory of victory, 
and becomes yellow in its flaming precious gold, and 
quiet Light intense as the grandest phenomenon — 



DEATH 



383 



sprung up skywards ; or against gravity ; therefore 
reversing nature's principal law. The intenser the 
darkness, or the mass of matter (the Rosicrucians' 
1 other side ' of Spirit, and of Light), the greater the 
Light, and the greater the spirit and vivacity and 
force in the Liberation into Light (and into Spirit) of 
the Darkness and the Matter ; when its farthest-win- 
nowed atoms are forced asunder in the darts of the 
fire, and turned 1 inside-outwards \ See preceding 
pages. This is the 1 Holy Grail or 1 Sangreal or 
' Sang-Reale ' or * Fire \ or ' Mighty Redeeming 
Magic sought by the Champions, or the Knights, of 
King Arthur's Round Table. See Supplementary 
Explanations. 

Fifthly. — The ' Just Man made Perfect ' is the 
Alchemist (or rather, Rosicrucian) who, having found 
the Philosophers' Stone (San Graal, or Holy Grail, 
or 1 Sang Reale 1 or ' Holy Rapture ' or Magic Birth 
into the Celestial Fire, or flame of Self-Extinguish- 
ment, or of ' Ecstasy '), becomes immortal (and dis- 
appears, or ' dies ' to the world). His 4 chariot of 
fire ' being that of Enoch, or ' Translation \ To die 
is simply the falling asunder and disintegration of 
the mechanism of the senses, which have contracted 
inwards and formed (in life) the prison of the soul — a 
prison of pains and penalties ; from between the bars 
of the windows of which (or out of the eyes) the suffer- 
ing, languishing Spirit looks for the often long-coming 
releasing Great Spirit — Death. The flitting is of 
the flickering flame (consciousness) out of the urn. To 
' Rise ' — is to cast off the chains of mortality. To 
become ' Glorified ' is to discover in one's own identity 
the glorious, godlike gifts or magic — which are the 
wings upon which to rise. Those men who have 
passed (as through a door) in their lifetime from the 
1 hither ' side (or world) to the ' thither ' side (or the 



3§4 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



world invisible) — following into the light the divine 
beckon to Paradise of the Angels of Light, are the 
Brothers of the Rosy Cross, or the Rosicrucians, 
as they have been called ; who ' know everything 
can ' do anything \ and have even arrogated to them- 
selves, when in them should be set up the same 
angelical-magical spirit which was in the Christ-Jesus, 
to be of the ' Council of God \ Though, in the world, 
they were the humblest of the servants of the Almighty. 

In the Sixth Place. — Creation is not the making 
of things out of nothing, which we understand com- 
monly (or vulgarly) of God's work in the beginning of 
the universe or of Creation. Matter, which the Rosi- 
crucians frequently refer to as Darkness, is that only 
which is properly to be called ' Nothing \ Thus when 
God is said to create, or make something out of nothing 
(to do which is impossible), it is to be understood 
that He worked with material, or with Darkness, which 
is the 1 Blank side ' or the ' Other Side of Light ; turned 
away\ These profound metaphysical distinctions 
are the key of all the Theologies. Moses, when he 
describes the Creation of the World, is the Alchemist, 
relating in parable the generation of the solids, and the 
flowing-over into the border-country (out of the flesh) 
of the Invisible — where Everything ultimately 
is. The history of David, Solomon (of the ' Temple '), 
Jacob (of the ' Ladder ; or Staircase from Earth to 
Heaven, and from Heaven to Earth etc.), Job ; 
the accounts of the Heroes of the stories of the Apo- 
crypha (the most concealed or recondite of the ' things 
hidden ' — thence its name), etc., are cabalistic and 
alchemical, similarly to all the mythologies, which are, 
in their fanciful and mystic range of supposed facts, 
cabalistic and alchemical. The true Cabalistce are 
none other than Alchemists and Rosicrucians. Like- 
wise the Magi, Wise Men, Philosophers, Priests, and 



THE TRINITY 



385 



Heroes ; from Jason and the ' Three Kings ' to King 
Arthur, and from Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, 
to Numa, Paracelsus, Borrichius, Robertus de Fluc- 
tibus (nearer our own time), and others. 

The Rosicrucian system took the following forms : 
— These Philosophers believed that there were Two 
Principles in the Beginning — Light and Darkness, or 
Form and the Material out of which the Form was. 
That before the Creation (distinctively so called), the 
Light Itself was as ' Divinity Latent ' or ' At Rest \ 
In the Creation, or in the production of things, Divinity 
became active, aroused, and inventive. By whatever 
name distinguished, or by whatever style identified, 
Moses' description of Creation is to be taken as the 
process of alchemy, as worked by Nature itself, being 
her Form ; to which head are referred the kingdoms 
of darkness, or chaos, and the Light emerging out of 
its own bosom or Darkness. 

After the active movement from the centre, or evolve- 
ment, or Creation, the radiation and counter-working 
or interchange of Light and Darkness in crossing and 
encountering irritated mutually, naturally ; became 
expansive and contractive angularly — thence pyra- 
midal and starry. And in the relative counterbalanc- 
ing contemperation, the diversity of things arose at 
the points of the masterdom into form or Light. The 
medium in which the elements were (and the elements 
themselves) now grew ' in their natures \ From 
these various rudiments of being — (in the vehicle 
Light) the archetypical scheme arranged itself ; which, 
* One ' in essence, was ' Triple ' in procession or 
' parade \ Hence the Trinity. 

. But it is Incomprehensible, obviously, without the 
means to comprehend it — which is Christ. Christ 
the ' Penalty ' — Christ the ' Sacrifice \ Christ the 
1 Glass ' of the ' Universe in which ' God ' saw 

c c 



386 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



1 Himself \ But ' Christ ' is not ' God ' any more than 
the ' Glass ' is the ' Seer \ From the Trinity and the 
vivifying substratum in the mathematical four corners 
of the world, comes the ineffable name — ' Tetragram- 
maton\ The archetypical 'Idea' is also called 
Reflective — Intelligible — Informed — Superessential — 
Endless in resource. 

Object — Subject — Result : or the Three 1 Persons ' 
of the Trinity. The reflection of God is in the Arche- 
type which is the Second Principle, or ( Macrocosmos 1 
(created worlds), exhibiting ' Either Side or' Will ' 
in ' Action \ This is displayed in Three Divisions, 
or Spheres — called (ist) the ' Empyraeum ' (God). 
(2nd) The ' Etheraeum ' (the ' Saviour '). (3rd) 
The ' Elements ' (the Virgin Mary). Light emanates 
in the Sephiroth (' cabala ') or ' Seven-fold ' rotation 
— hence the • production of phenomena \ In uniting 
with the Ethereal Spirit, it becomes the Soul, or 
' Responsive Sentience of the World \ The further 
elucidation of the Rosicrucian theological system, 
in its general features — so far as in hint or parable 
submitted to unenlightened comprehension — will be found 
prestated in previous pages, and elsewhere. 

The Rosicrucians contend that music, or melody — 
which is enchantment — pervades all nature in its 
prosperous or intended progress, although it is only 
the wail, or plaint, of the instinctive soul on its 
' wounded or ' sacrificed or ' Ruined Side \ It 
mourns for its ' Original Lost Paradise \ The music 
of the spheres is no unreal thing, but real as is the 
atmosphere of the spirits ; for ' music is the atmosphere 
of the spirits and discords (though the necessity, 
support, and balance of Creation) are a medium for 
the coarse and low spirits, who inundate, as it were, 
the lees and the settlings of nature. In discords, or 
in the inharmonious strife amidst the sounds, the 



THE MAGIC OP MUSIC 



3$7 



rabble of the spirits (so to term them) are stimulated 
to their envious and spiteful, or malific or freakish 
and blundering, bad life. Beauty is not, however, 
necessarily beauty — it may be seduction. For the 
higher grades of the recusant or rebellious spirits who 
find their power in the original permission that there 
* might be phenomena ' are beautiful in their assumpt- 
ion — or usurpation — of the lovely forms of spirit-life 
and of nature. And they will prevail, sometimes, 
even against the best efforts of the Angels of Light. 
The Cabalists whisper that God 1 made the world 9 
by the ' means of music ' — that music, as man knows 
music, is essentially a power ; that it is the faint, 
much-changed, much-enfeebled, sole relic, and tradi- 
tion, and reminder of Man's Lost Paradise ; that 
(through it originally) everything was possible, as the 
gift of God ; which explains the classic fables of 
Orpheus, Amphion, and the mythological wonder- 
workers in music ; that music is modulated in the move- 
ments of the planets according to the rearrangement 
of the post-diluvian world, and in conformity with the 
readjustment of the solar-system after mysterious 
aberration or cataclysm ; that mortality cannot hear, 
and that the human soul is so debased that it only 
catches intermittently the faint echo of the continuous 
universal music which in other — now material — senses 
is the life and growth and splendour of everything. 

There's not the smallest orb, that thou behold'st, 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims : 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot- hear it. 

Music is magic, is sacred, and a power — as all harmony 
must be ; — the nerves of the world — the aspiration 



388 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



oi living things — the spell which breaks up and extols 
— into super-added, super-natural life — the ' Real ' into 
the ' Ideal \ Harmony — or the mysterious solace 
and satisfaction and happiness at heroism which we 
feel — is found in the beauty of the human figure, the 
glories and graces of all growing objects and moving 
or unmoving natures. Success in nature, and in life, 
with their changes — as man knows ' nature ' and ' life ' 
— arise from the interstarry, mechanical modifications, 
and the incidents (and the apparent interference and 
intertangle) through the restless movement of the 
planets. All the glorious seeming mechanism of the 
starry sky shows so as mechanism only to the measur- 
ing senses of man ; but in reality it may be the play of 
Infinite Spirit. (See accompanying Charts, A, B, C.) 
The planets of our own system may be directed in 
their ' continual-speaking 1 changes by their several 
crowds of governing spirits. Spirits being everywhere 
the directors of matter, its solids are only to be separ- 
ated by soul or energy — as the wedge (directed by the 
will) cleaves inert or resistant solids. Music is always 
in the air. Man has no ears for it, unless it is enlivened 
to, or finds access to, his senses. But his heart 
is its home — if he has a heart, and not an 
' animal's mechanic throbbing-machine ' only. Air 
is the breathing of nature. Music is always in the air — 
more particularly at night, for Nature (being born of 
it) is necessarily more nervously sensitive at night, 
whether for the ' beautiful ' or the ' dreadful ' ; be- 
cause both are equally exciting and fascinating — basil- 
isks both — as they are mysterious. We obtain by 
pulsation, or scientific commotion of the air, by musical 
instruments, the music out of it ; and our fine nerves 
are the fine sensitives (born of God), as the harp played 
upon to receive it. Otherwise there is no sense in music. 
Otherwise our passions could not be stirred by it. 



ROSICRUCIAN ASTROLOGICAL SYSTEM 389 

These are storms and convulsions (rendered beautiful) 
certainly not born of God's original ' Rest \ Rather 
they come of the stirring ambitions of Lucifer — up- 
rising — ' Son of the Morning \ ' Son of the Awaken- 
ing ' — ' Son ' of the ' Sun '. Music and its success 
depend upon the prosperous progress of the Planets 
which make it, as (in Astrology) they prearrange, order 
and fix the fates of men. It is no inconsistent thing 
to say that, in the Rosicrucian sense, every stone, flower, 
and tree has its horoscope (we know that there are no 
two leaves alike), and that they are produced and 
flourish in the mechanical resources of the mysterious 
necessities of astrology — every object bearing its 
history in its lines and marks (sigillated magnetism), 
as inspired by the Great Soul of the World ; which is 
all continual changing purpose, urging restlessly to- 
wards ' Rest \ 

* Nullam esse herbam, aut plantam inferius, cujus 
non sit stella in firmamento, quae earn percutiat, et 
dicat ei, cresce.' Exercitatio in Fluddanam Philoso- 
phiam, p. 228. Parisiis, 1630. 

Or back again to that from which it came. Moving 
in the arc of the pendulum between the two points- 
Life and Death (as we know Life and Death) — beyond 
which the ' swing ' of this world's ' Creation ' points, 
cannot pass — OR BE. 



CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH 



INDIAN MYSTERIOUS ADORATION OF FORMS. THE UNITY 
OF THE MYTHOLOGIES FOUND IN THE BHUDDISTIC 
AND MOHAMMEDAN TEMPLES 

General note on the Sacti Puja. Power means the 
good goddess, Maya Maia (i.e. Delusion). She is also 
called Bhagala, Vagula, Bagala-mukhi. She has neither 
images nor pictures. The Girl in the Indian sacred, 
secret Temple rites, who figures as the representative 
of Sacti, is the supposed embodiment of the goddess 
offered for worship. The word Sacti corresponds to 
genius, or ' sylph of the Rosicrucian creed. The 
doctrine of guardian angels and of patron saints is 
conveyed in these Hindoo meanings in the machinery 
of the 1 sylphs ' . 

During Puja, the Yogini is supposed to be in an 
exalted visionary state (guy ana nidra), wherein, like 
the sibyls among the ancients, and the modern clair- 
voy antes, she answers questions in a delirious manner, 
and is supposed to be for the time inspired. The 
Foreign Quarterly Review, No X. for February 
1830 ; art. viii. : ' Histoire Critique de Gnosticisme, 
et de son influence sur les Sects religieuses et philoso- 
phiques des six premiers siecles de Fere chretienne. 
Ouvrage couronne par V Academie Roy ale des Inscrip- 
tions et Belles Lettres. Par M. J. Matter, Professeur. 
2 tomes, avec planches, 8vo, Paris, 1828/ The third 
volume is of small size, and contains eleven plates of 
gems and symbols. This book proves Gnosticism to 
be identical with the Sacti creed of the Hindus. 



BRA HMINICA L EMBLEMS 391 

Edward Sellon advances this. See Annotations on the 
Sacred Writings of the Hindus, being an epitome of 
some of the most remarkable and leading tenets in the 
faith of that people. Printed for Private Circulation, 
1865. London. 

Briihm Atma, the Breathing Soul, is, according to 
the Hindoos, a spiritual Supreme Being, coeval with 
the formation of the world. In process of time the 
Hindoos appear to have adopted a material type or 
emblem of Briihm. A rude block of stone began to 
be set up. This was the ' Phallus or, as they termed 
it, the 1 Linga 1 . This emblem had reference to the 
Procreative Power seen throughout nature, and in 
that primaeval age was regarded with the greatest awe 
and veneration. This simple and primitive Idolatry 
came by degrees to diverge into the adoration of 
the elements, particularly Fire, and at length developed 
itself by the institution of an emanation from Briihm 
Atma in his Triune capacity, as Creator, Preserver (or 
' Saviour '), and Destroyer. These attributes were 
deified under the names of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, 
on whom were conferred three gunas, or qualities, viz. 
Rajas (passion), Sat (purity), and Tumas (darkness). 
This is the Trimurti. 1 Trimurti ' (three-formed Murti), 
signifying also an image. Our vital souls are, according 
to the Vedanta, no more than images, or elScoXa of 
the ' Supreme Spirit ' — As. Res. vol. hi. It may be 
concluded that the most exalted notion of worship 
among the Hindus is a service of fear . The Brahmins 
say that the other Gods are good and benevolent, and 
will not hurt their creatures ; but that Siva is power- 
ful and cruel, and that it is necessary to appease him. 
As fear is, and must be everywhere, the most potent 
feeling. Thence vital and active physical religion. 
Distrust and fear of the external phenomena of the 
world, as meaning mischief to us (it means the greatest 



392 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

■ — apparently — in Death), created religion. Fear 
creates respect — respect is attention to an object, and 
therefore dread of it. Because we are not acquainted 
with its possible operation upon ourselves in regard 
of our being interfered with or injured. Hence all 
religion is selfishness apart from ' inspiration \ which 
the world (in its folly) calls 1 superstition \ 

The most popular representation of the Divine 
Being in India is unquestionably the Linga ; a smooth 
stone rising out of another stone of finer texture, 
simulacrum membri virilis et pudendum muliebre. 

This emblem is identical with Siva in his capacity 
of ' Lord of all \ It is necessary, however, to observe 
that Professor Wilson, while admitting that 1 the 
Linga is perhaps the most ancient object of homage 
adopted in India adds, ( subsequently to the ritual 
of the Vedhas, which was chiefly, if not wholly, 
addressed to the Elements, and particularly to Fire. 
How far the worship of the Linga is authorized by the 
Vedhas is doubtful, but that it is the main purport of 
several of the Pur anas 1 there can be no doubt.' 2 

The universality of Linga puja (or worship) at the 
period of the Mohammedan invasion of India is wel] 
attested. The idol destroyed by Mahmoud of Ghizni 
was nothing more than one of those mystical blocks 
of stone called Lingas. The worship of Siva under 
the type of the Linga is almost the only form in which 
that Deity is reverenced. The Linga of black or 
white marble, and sometimes of alabaster slightly 
tinted and gilt, is placed in the middle of the Hindu 
temples. This is a Chinese hint. The Chinese Pagodas 
are Phalli, storied ( Tors ', or Obelisks ; abounding 

1 Puranas (New Testament), the Modern Scriptures of the Hindus, 
as distinguished from the Vedhas (as Bible), or more Ancient Scrip- 
tures. Wilson on Hindu Sects — As. Res. vol. xvii. 

2 As, Res. vol. xvii. pp. 208-10. 



PROFUNDITIES OF BRAHMIN BELIEF 393 



in bells to be agitated in the winds to drive off the 
crowds of roving malignant spirits. The whole of 
China may be mystically said to be populated by 
' Bells and the Dragon ' . Speaking of Siva and 
Pawati, M. de Langlet says : ' Les deux divinites 
dont-il s'agit, sont tres souvent et tres pieusement 
adorees sous le figure du Linga (le Phallus des anciens), 
et de l'Yoni dans leur mysterieuse conjonction. 
L'Yoni so nomme aussi Bhaga (pudendum muliebre). 
Madheri, douce ; et Argha, vase en forme de bateau.' 
Benares is the peculiar seat of the Linga or Phallic 
worship. No less than forty-seven Lingas are visited, 
all of pre-eminent sanctity • but there are hundreds 
of inferior note still worshipped, and thousands whose 
fame and fashion have passed away. It is a singular 
fact, that upon this adoration of the procreative and 
sexual Sacti (or power) seen throughout nature, hinges 
the whole strength of the Hindu faith. Notwith- 
standing all that has been said by half-informed and 
prejudiced persons to the contrary, this ftuja does 
not appear to be prejudicial to the morals of the 
people. Nearly all the Pujas are conducted with the 
frequent ringing of bells, and the object of this is two- 
fold — first, to wake up the attention at particular 
parts of the service ; and secondly, to scare away 
malignant Dewtas and evil spirits ; precisely, in fact, 
for the same reasons as they are used at the celebration 
of Mass in Roman Catholic countries. 

Prakriti, the mother of gods and men, one with 
matter, the source of error, is identified with Maya 
or delusion, and coexistent with the Omnipotent, as 
his Sacti, his personified energy, his bride. Parkriti 
is inherent Maya, 'because she beguiles all things '. 
— As. Res. xvii. It is stated in one of the Purans 
that Brahma, having determined to create the uni- 
verse, became androgynous, male and female (or 



394 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



1 reflector ' and ' reflected ') ; the right half having 
the sex and form of a man, the left that of a woman. 
In his images he is sometimes thus represented, and 
is then termed Ardnari. ' This is Prakriti of one 
nature with Bruhm — illusion, eternal, as the soul so 
is its active energy, as the faculty of burning is in 
fire.' The Sacti system bears a striking affinity with 
Epicureanism. It teaches Materialism, and the Atomic 
System of the ' Confluence of Chance \ Compare 
the Ananda Tantram, c. xvii. with Lucretius, lib. hi. 
On the base of Minerva's statue at Sais, whom the 
Egyptians regarded to be the same as Isis, a goddess 
who bears so striking an analogy to the Hindu Pra- 
kriti or nature, there was this inscription : ' I am 
everything that was, that is, that is to be. Nor has 
mortal ever been able to discover what I am' — Plutarch, 
De Isideet stride, S. ix. According to the immediate 
object of worship is the particular ceremony, but all 
the forms (lighter or heavier) require the use of some 
or all of the five Makaras : Mdnsa, Matsya, Madya y 
Maithuna, and Mudra, that is, fish, flesh, wine, women, 
and certain charms or mystical gesticulations with 
the fingers. Suitable muntrus, or incantations, are 
also indispensable, according to the end proposed, 
consisting of various seemingly unmeaning mono- 
syllabic combinations of letters, of great imaginary 
efficacy. ' The combination of H and S is principal, 
and is called Prdsdda-M antra, and described in the 
Kuldrnava! — Wilson, As. Res. In many of the 
religious observances solitude is enjoined, but all the 
principal ceremonies culminate in the worship of 
Sacti, or Power, and require, for that purpose, the 
presence of a young and beautiful girl, as the living 
representative of the goddess. This worship is mostly 
celebrated, in all due serious religious formality, in a 
mixed society • the men of which represent Bhai- 



INDIAN PHALLICISM 



395 



ravas, or Viras, and the women Bhanravis and Nayikas. 

The female thus worshipped is ever after denomin- 
ated Yogini, i.e. ' attached ' (set apart, sacred). 
This Sanscrit word is in the dialects pronounced Jogi 
and Zogee, and is equivalent to a secular nun, as these 
women are subsequently supported by alms. The 
leading rites of the Sakti-Sodhana are described in 
the Devi-Radhasya, a section of the Rudra-Y dmala. 
It is therein enjoined that the object of worship 
should be either 1 A dancing-girl, a female devotee 
(or nun), a courtesan, a Dhobee woman, a barber's 
wife, a female of the Brahminical or Sudra tribe, a 
flower-girl, or a milkmaid \ Appropriate muntrus 
are to be used. She is to be solemnly placed naked 
(as a sacred, unapproachable ' Thing or object), 
but richly ornamented with jewels and flowers — the 
triumphant spoils of glorious nature — on the left of a 
circle (inscribed for the purpose), with muntrus and 
gesticulations. The circle, or vacant enchanted space, 
must be rendered pure by repeated incantations and 
rites ; being finally baptized with wine by the peculiar 
mantra. The Sacti is now sublimized or ' apotheo- 
sized ' ; but if not previously initiated, she is to 
be farther made an adept by the communication of 
the radical Mantra or last charm whispered thrice 
in her ear, when the object of the ceremony is com- 
plete. The finale to this solemnity is what might 
be concluded as likely, but — strange to say — accom- 
panied throughout by muntrus and forms of meditat- 
ion and of devotion incomprehensibly foreign to 
the scene. In other aspects this presentation of the 
' Yogini ' is a ' Sacrifice \ and the whole meaning of 
the rites is sacrificial — rites performed before an altar, 
and implying — superstition undoubtedly — but deep 
mystery and some profoundest suggestions. (Wilson, 
As. Res. vol. xii 225 : on Hind. Sects. Vide Rig 



396 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Veda, Book ii. c. viii. ss. 13, 14, 2nd attham, 8th 
pannam, Rigs B. 14, which contain the Sucla Homa 
Mantram, etc.) 

The caste-mark of the Saivas and Sactas consist 
of three horizontal lines on the forehead, with ashes 
obtained if possible from the hearth, on which a con- 
secrated fire is perpetually maintained. 

The Sacti (or ' Sacred Presence ') is personified by 
a naked girl, to whom offerings are made of meat 
and wine, which are then distributed amongst the 
assistants. Here follows the chanting of the Muntrus, 
and sacred texts, and the performance of the mudra, 
or gesticulations with the fingers. The whole service 
terminates with orgies amongst the votaries of a very 
licentious description. This ceremony is entitled the 
Sri Chakra, or Purnabisheka, the Ring or f Full 
Initiation \ This method of adoring the Sacti is 
unquestionably acknowledged by the texts regarded 
by the Vanis as authorities for the excesses practised. 
Wilson, on Hind. Sects, vol. xvii. As. Res. Ward, on 
the Vaisnavas, p. 309. 

In Gregory's Works (Notes and Observations upon 
several difficult passages in Scripture, vol. i. 4to. London 
1684) is to be found a significant comment. ' Noah 
prayed daily in the Ark before the body of Adam \ i.e. 
before the Phallus, or Regenerator (Adam being the 
primitive ' Phallus or great Procreator of the Human 
Race) — (under its present circumstances, and in the 
existing dispensation). ' It may possibly seem strange ' , 
Gregory says, ' that this orison should be daily said 
before the body of Adam ; but it is a most confessed 
Tradition among the Eastern men that Adam was 
commanded by God that his dead body should be 
kept above ground till a fullness of time should come 
to commit it yiN^NDDVB to the middle of the earth by 
a priest of the Most High God/ See previous pages. 



THE GOLDEN CALF 



397 



This ' middle of the earth ' is Mount Moriah — the 
Meru of India. 

The 4 Brazen Serpent ' continued to be worshipped 
by the Jews, and to have incense offered to that Idol, 
till the reign of Hezekiah : 4 For, it being written in 
the Law of Moses 44 Whosoever looks upon it shall 
live they fancied they might obtain blessings by 
its mediation, and therefore thought it worthy to 
be worshipped. Our learned Dr. Jackson observes 
that " the pious Hezekiah was moved with the greater 
indignation against the worship of this image, because 
in truth it never was — nor was intended to be — a 
type of our Saviour, but a figure of His Grand 
Enemy " * 3 etc. 

The Jews relapsed into idolatry by the adoration 
of the Golden Calf ; set up, too, not by a few schis- 
matics, but by the entire people, with Aaron at their 
head. The calf-superstition was doubtless a relic of 
what they had seen in Egypt in the worship of Apis 
and Mnevis. Next we have the 4 Golden Calves ' set 
up by Jeroboam at Dan and Bethel. Then follows 
(Judges viii. 22, etc.) the worship of Gideon's Ephod. 
4 The Ephod made by Gideon with the spoil of the 
Midianites became after his death an object of idolatry ' 
(ibid., p. 41). We have also Micah's images and the 
4 Teraphim \ We learn from St. Jerome (who re- 
ceived it by tradition from the ancient Jews, and 
indeed it is so stated in Numbers xxv. 1, 2, etc. ; xxiii. 
28, and numerous other passages of the .Old Testa- 
ment) that the Jews adored Baal Phegor (Baal- 
Pheor), the Priapus of the Greeks and Romans. 
4 It was \ he says, 4 principally worshipped by women ; 
colentibus maxime feminis (Baal-Phegor).' Maimonides 
observes that the adoration offered to this Idol, called 
Pehor, consisted in discovering . Chemosh, pro- 
bably the same as Baal-Pheor, also received the 



39* 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



homage of the Jews, as also did Milcom, Molech, 
Baal-berith (or Cybele), and numerous others — all 
of the same sexual cast. 

From all this in regard to their irregular worship 
— or rather (mysteriously) to their regular or assigned 
worship, it will be seen that the Jews fell into Idolatry 
(and Phallic Idolatry, too) to an extent interpene- 
trating, again most mysteriously, the whole scope 
of their religion. There will consequently not appear 
anything so very startling in the supposition that 
the Ark of the Covenant contained symbolic objects 
referring to Phallic ideas. We have seen that the 
' Stone ', or ' Pillar of Jacob was held in particular 
veneration— that it was worshipped and anointed. 
We know from the Jewish records that the Ark was 
supposed to contain the tables of stone. And if it 
can be demonstrated that these stones implied a 
Phallic reference, and that these ' tables ' were identical 
with the symbolism accompanying the sacred name 
Jehovah, Iehovah, or Yehovah, which, written in 
unpointed Hebrew, with four letters is — IEVE or 
IHVH (the He being merely an aspirate and the 
same as E) — this process leaves us the two letters 
I and V (or, in another of its forms, U). Then if we 
add the I in the U w r e have the ' Holy of Holies ' ; 
we also have the Linga and Yoni and Argha (Ark or 
Arc) of the Hindus, the 1 Iswarra 1 or * Supreme 
Lord \ In all this may be found — mystically — the 
' Arc-Celestial ' replicating-in upon itself — symbolic- 
ally and anagrammatically — and presenting itself 
as identical with the ' Lingayoni ' of the ' Ark of the 
Covenant \ Gregory observes that the ' middle of 
the Ark was the place of prayer — made holy (conse- 
crated) by the presence of Adam's Body/ (Refer 
to the glyptic symbolism, the mystical engrav- 
ing of the ' Ark \ placed among the full-page plates. 



TRADITIONS CONCERNING THE 'ARK* 



399 



Thence ' Man ' was the Cabalistic (Rosicrucian) Micro- 
cosmos or ' Little World in contradistinction to the 
causer, or pattern, or original — Macrocosmos, or 
' Great or 1 Producing ' (' Outside '), or ' Originating 
World \ 

' The body of Adam was embalmed and trans- 
mitted from father to son, till at last it was delivered 
up by Lamech into the hands of Noah.' Again, the 
' middle of the Ark ' was the place of prayer (and 
worship) made holy by the presence of ' Adam's 
" Body " . ' — Gregory, p. 118. ' And " 50 soon as 
ever the day began to break " Noah stood up towards 
the " body of Adam ' etc., etc., ' and " prayed " 
(or " worshipped ") Here was the origin of the 
' Eucharist as the reader will clearly see farther on 
(see accompanying plate). 

The most ancient monuments of Idolatry among 
the Gentiles were consecrated pillars (Lingas), cr 
columns, which the Jews were forbidden to erect as 
objects of divine homage and adoration. And yet — 
a most extraordinary contradiction — this practice is 
conceived to arise from an imitation of Jacob, who 
' took a stone ' and ' set it up etc. Further, ' this 
stone was held in great veneration in subsequent 
times by the Jews, and removed to Jerusalem/ They 
were accustomed to ' anoint this stone ' ; and from 
the word Bethel y the place where the pillar was erected, 
came the word Bcetylia among the Heathen, which 
signified rude stones, or uprights, which they wor- 
shipped either as ' symbols of Divinity or as 
' true gods animated (at certain times) by the 
heavenly power. Thence the name ' Bowing Stones ' 
amongst the W T elsh — not as stones to be ' bowed to 
but ' bowing of themselves like the modern ' tipping- 
discs ' or other supposed enchanted idols or consul- 
tative tables or objects. Indeed it would seem not 



4oo 



THE R0S1CRUCIANS 



improbable that the erection of the Pillar of Jacob 
actually gave rise to the worship of Phallus among 
some of the Pagan peoples. ' For says Lewis, ' the 
learned Bochart asserts that the Phoenicians (at least 
as the Jews think) first worshipped this very stone 
which Jacob set up, and afterwards consecrated others 
in imitation and in reminder of it.' 

It is to little purpose that we are reminded that 
the Jews were forbidden by their law to ' make unto 
themselves any graven image ' ; for, as Lewis shows 
in the following passage, there may be exceptions to 
this, as to every other general rule. ' Notwith- 
standing he says, ' the severity of the Law against 
the making of Images, yet, as Justin Martyr observes 
in his Book against Trypho, it must be somewhat 
mysterious, that God in the case of the " Brazen Ser- 
pent " should command an image to be made, for 
which one of the Jews confessed he never could hear 
a reason from any of their Doctors/ According to 
Theodoret, Arnobius, and Clemens of Alexandria, 
the Yoni (then become Ioni ; thence Ionia and 
Ionic) of the Hindus was the sole object of venerat- 
ion in the Mysteries of Eleusis (Demosthenes, On the 
Crown). 



CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH 



DOCTRINE AND RATIONALE. THE EMBODIED ' CHIL- 
DREN OF THE ELEMENTS BOTH OF HEATHEN 
AND OF CHRISTIAN PERIODS 

II est avere pour les Theologiens et les Philosophies, 
que de la copulation de l'homme, male ou femelle, 
avec le Demon, naissent quelquefois des hommes. 
Et c'est de la sorte que doit naitre TAntichrist, suivant 
bon nombre de Docteurs : Bellarmin, Suarez, Malu- 
enda, etc. lis observent en outre que, par une cause 
toute naturelle, les enfans ainsi procrees par les 
Incubes (Exterior Spirits, with more or less power, 
enabled to embody themselves with male human 
characteristics, and drawn to earth with the desire to 
form alliances with women — as hinted in the Bible), 
sont grands, tres-robustes, tres-audacieux, tres-superbes, 
et tres-mechants. Voyez la-dessus Maluenda ; quant 
a la cause en question, il nous le donne d'apres 
Vallesius, Archiatre de Reggio. 

' Ce que les Incubes introduisent in uteros n'est pas qualecumque, 
neque quantumcumque — mais abondant, tres-charge d'esprits et 
sans aucune serosite. Ceci est d'ailleurs pour eux chose facile : 
ils n'ont qu'a choisir des hommes chauds, robustes, et quibus suc- 
cumbant ; puis des femmes de raeme temperament, quibus incum- 
bant. Tels sont les termes de Vallesius. Maluenda confirme ce 
qui a 6t6 dit plus haut, prouvant, par le temoignage de divers 
Auteurs, classiques la plupart, que c'est a pareilles unions que 
doivent leur naissance : Romulus et Remus, d'apres Tite-Live et 
Plutarque ; Servius-Tullius, sixieme roi des Romains, d'apres 
Denys d'Halicarnasse et Pline l'Ancien ; Plato le Philosophe, 
d'apres Diogene Laerce et Saint Jerome , Alexandre le Grand, 
d'apres Plutarque et Quinte-Curce ; Seleucus, roi de Syrie, d'apres 



402 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

Justin et Appien ; Scipion l'Africain, premier du nom, d'apres 
Tite-Live ; l'empereur Cesar-Auguste, d'apres Suetone ; Aristomene 
de Messenie, illustre general grec, d'apres Strabon et Pausanias. 
Ajoutons encore l'Anglais Merlin or Melchin, ne d'un Incube et 
d'une Religieuse, fille de Charlemagne. Et, enfin, comme l'ecrit 
Cocleus, cite par Maluenda, ce Heresiarque qui a nom Martin 
Luther.' 

On lit aussi dans la Sainte Ecriture, Genese, chap. 
6, verset 4, que des geants sont nes du commerce des 
Fils de Dieu (the ' Angels of God ') avec les Filles 
des Hommes (the 1 Daughters of Men '). Ceci est la 
lettre meme du texte sacre. Or, ces geants etaient 
des hommes de grande stature, comme qu'il est dit 
dans Baruch, chap. 3, verset 26, et de beaucoup 
superieurs aux autres hommes. Outre cette taille 
monstreuse, ils se signalaient encore par leur force, 
leurs rapines, leur tyrannie ; aussi est-ce aux crimes 
des Geants qu'il convient d'attribuer la cause premiere 
et principale du Deluge, suivant Cornelius a Lapide, 
dans son Comment aire stir la Genese. 

Ces animaux Incubi (spirits capable of incorporating 
themselves and of borrowing forms to effect their 
purpose without ' alarming ' — asserted to be an ' essent- 
ial Rosicrucian tenet ') ces animaux naitraient-ils 
dans le peche originel, et auraient-ils rachetes par le 
Seigneur Christ ? La grace leur serait-elle conferee, 
et par quels sacrements, sous quelle loi vivraient-ils, 
et seraient-ils capables de Beatitude et de Damnation ? 

' Dans un monastere de saintes Religieuses vivait comme pension- 
naire une jeune vierge de noble famille, laquelle etait tentee paf 
un Incube qui lui apparaissait jour et nuit, et, avec les plus instantes 
prieres, avec les allures de l'amant le plus passionne, la sollicitait 
sans cesse au peche. Elle cependant, soutenue par la grace de 
Dieu et la frequentation des sacrements, demeurait ferme dans sa 
resistance. Mais malgre toutes ses devotions, ses jeunes, ses vceux ; 
malgre les exorcismes, les benedictions, les injonctions faites par 
les exorcistes a l'lncube de renoncer a ses persecutions ; en depit 
de la multitude de reliques et autres objets sacres accumules dans 



'EXCHANGE OF SEX' IN DRESS AT CARNIVALS 403 



la chambre de la jeune fille, des flambeaux ar dents qu'on y 
entretenait toute la nuit, l'lncube n'en persistait pas moins a lui 
apparaitre comme de coutume sous la forme d'un tres-beau jeune 
homme. Enfin, parmi les doctes personnages consultes, a ce 
propos, se trouva un Theologien d'une grande erudition : lequel, 
observant que la jeune fille tentee etait d'un temperament tout a 
fait flegmatique, conjectura que cet Incube devait etre un demon 
aqueux (il y a en effet, comme en temoigne Guaccius, des demons 
ignes, aeriens, flagmatiques, terrestres, souterrains, ennemis du 
jour)/ 

We may here remark that the above expresses some 
of the notions of the Rosicrucians in regard to those 
that they denominate : ' Les Enfans Aeriens et Les 
Enf antes Aeriennes \ their Ondins and Ondines, their 
Sylphs and Sylfthides, their Gnomes and Gnomides, 
their Rebels, Kebelles or Kobolds (Krolls or Krolles), 
and their Salamanders and Salamandrines. 

* Le Theologien erudit ordonna qu'on fit immediatement dans 
la chambre de la jeune fille une fumigation de vapeur. On apporte 
en consequence une marmite neuve en terre transparente ; on y 
met une once de canne aromatique, de poivre cubebe, de racines 
d'aristoloche des deux especes, de cardomome grand et petit, de 
gingembre, de poivre long, de caryophyllee, de cinnamome, de 
canelle caryophyllee, de macis, de noix muscades, de storax calamite, 
de benjoin, de bois d'aloes, et de trisanthes, le tout dans trois 
livres d'eau-de-vie demipure ; on place la marmite sur des cendres 
chaudes, arm de faire monter la vapeur fumigante, et Ton tient 
la chambre close. La fumigation fait arriver 1' Incube, mais qui, 
cette fois, n'osa jamais penetrer dans la chambre. Seulement, 
si la jeune fille en sortait pour se promener dans le jar din ou dans 
le cloitre, il lui apparaissait aussitot tout en restant invisible aux 
autres, et lui jetant ses bras autour du cou, lui derobait ou plutot 
lui arrachait des baisers, ce qui faisait cruellement souffrir cette 
honnete pucelle. Enfin, apres nouvelle consultation, notre Theo- 
logien ordonna a la jeune fille de porter sur elle de petites boulettes 
composees de parfums exquis, tels que muse, ambre, civette, baume 
de Perou et autres. Ainsi munie, elle s'en alia se promener dans 
le jardin ou sur-le-champ lui apparut lTncube, furieux et menacant ; 
toutefois, il n'osa point l'approcher, et apres s'etre mordille le doigt, 
comme s'il meditait une vengeance, il disparut pour ne plus revenir. — 
Confesseur de Nonnes, homme grave et tres-digne de foi.' 



404 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Je sais que beaucoup de mes lecteurs, la plupart 
peut-etre, diront de moi ce que les Epicuriens et bon 
nombre de Philosophes Stoiciens disaient de S. Paul 
(Actes des Apotres, c. 17, v. 18) : ■ II semble qu'il 
annonce des divinites nouvelles et tourneront ma 
doctrine en ridicule. Mais ils n'en seront pas moins 
tenus de detruire les arguments qui precedent, de nous 
dire ce que c'est que ces Demons Incubes, vulgairement 
appeles Follcts, qui n'ont peur ni des exorcismes, ni 
des objets sacres, ni de la Croix du Christ ; et enfin 
de nous expliquer les divers effets et phenomenes 
relates par nous dans l'exposition de cette doctrine. 

The above passage is very curious, since it gives the 
key (a matter which has puzzled every speculator) 
as to the meaning of the masquerade and 1 Folly ' and 
antic system which prevails in the Catholic application 
of the Christian Doctrine at the ' Pre-Lent ' period, 
and the recurring Festivals, or the Jovial, Mercurial, 
Venus-patronized periods. Folk : Follets (m), Fol- 
lettes (f), Folletins (m.), Folletinnes (f). These are 
the names of the male and female masquerading, 
gambolling ' Follies \ or Fays or Elves or Sprightly 
Spirits — under their various fanciful names, and in 
their picturesque, sportive, masquerading disguises — 
the ' pied-populace ' of that ' world-turned-upside- 
down in the general male and female interchange and 
frolicsome 4 Glorying ' — the Carnival, or Grotesque 
(in reality, religious) Celebration of all countries. 
Dancing is also sacred in certain senses. The i Pre- 
centor ' of the Cathedrals was originally the Leader 
of the Choir ephists, or Chorephists, or Corephests. 
Thence Coriphes, or Coryphees, for female dancers. 

Luxure et humidite sont deux termes correspon- 
dants : ce n'est pas sans raison que les Poetes ont fait 
naitre Venus de la mer, voulant indiquer, comme 
l'expliquent les Mythologues, que la luxure a sa source 



TEMPTATIONS 



405 



dans l'humidite. Lorsque les Incubes s'unissent aux 
femmes dans leur corps propre et naturel, sans meta- 
morphose ou artifice, les femmes ne les voient pas, 
ou, si elles les voient, c'est comme une ombre presque 
incertaine et a peine sensible. Quando vero volant 
se visibiles amasiis redder e, atque ipsis delectationem 
in congressu camale afferre, sibi indumentum visibile 
assumunt, et corpus crassum reddunt. Par quel art 
(magic), ceci est leur secret. Notre philosophic a 
courte vue est impuissante a le decouvrir. 

Hector Boethius, Hist. Scot., raconte aussi le cas 
d'un jeune Ecossais qui, pendant plusieurs mois, recut 
dans sa chambre, quoique les portes et fenetres en 
fussent hermetiquement (note : this word comes 
from the 1 Hermetic Brothers ', or the Rosicrucians) 
fermees, les visites d'une Diablesse Succube (as it was 
supposed or assumed, perhaps wrongfully) de la plus 
ravissante beaut e ; caresses, baisers, embrassements, 
sollicitations, cette Diablesse (or Temptress) mit tout 
en ceuvre, ut secum — ce qu'elle ne put toutefois obtenir 
de ce virtueux jeune homme. A worthy example to 
youth : ' especially in this generation ' will be an 
exclamation vividly rising to the mind of the reader. 

D'autres fois aussi le Demon, soit incube, soit suc- 
cube, s'accouple avec des hommes ou des femmes 
dont-il ne regoit rien des hommages, sacrifices ou off- 
randes qu'il a coutume d'imposer aux Sorciers et aux 
Sorcieres, comme on Fa vu plus haut. C'est alors 
simplement un amoureux passionne, n'ayant qu'un 
but, un desir : posseder — la personne qu'il aime. II 
y a de ceci une foule d'exemples, qu'on peut trouver 
dans les Auteurs, entre autres celui de Menippus 
Lycius, lequel, apres avoir maintes et maintes fois 

avec une femme, en fut prie de l'epouser ; mais 

un certain Philosophe, qui assistait au repas de noces, 
ayant devine ce qu'etait cette femme, dit a Menippus 



406 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



qu'il avait affaire a une Cotnpuse, c'est-a-dire a une 
Diablesse Succube ; aussitot notre mariee s'evanouit 
en gemissant. — Lisez la-dessus Coelius Rodiginus, Antiq., 
livre 29, chap. 5. These extraordinary narrations 
form the basis, and supply the material, for Keats's 
poem Lamia and Coleridge's poetic sketch ' Christabel \ 

Nous avons de plus, a l'appui de notre these, VEvan- 
gile de S. Jean y ch. 10, v. 16, ou il est dit : ' J'ai encore 
d'autres brebis qui ne sont pas de cette bergerie : il 
faut aussi que je les amene, et elles entendront ma 
voix, et il n'y aura qu'une seule bergerie et qu'un seul ber- 
ger.' Si nous demandons quelles peuvent etre ces brebis 
qui ne sont pas de cette bergerie, et quelle est cette 
bergerie dont parle le Seigneur Christ, tous les Commen- 
tateurs nous respondent que la seule bergerie du Christ 
c'est l'Eglise, a laquelle la predication de l'Evan- 
gile devait amener les Gentils, qui etaient d'une autre 
bergerie que celle des Hebreux. Pour eux, en effet, la 
bergerie du Christ, c'etait la Synagogue, d'abord parce 
que David avait dit (Psaume 95, v. 7) : ' Nous sommes 
son peuple et ses brebis qu'il nourrit dans ses patur- 
ages ' ; puis, parce que la promesse avait ete faite 
a Abraham et a David que la Messie sortirait de leur 
race, parce qu'il etait attendu par le peuple Hebreu, 
annonce par les Prophetes, que etaient Hebreux, et 
que son avenement, ses actes, sa passion, sa mort 
et sa resurrection etaient comme figures d'avance 
dans les sacrifices, le culte et les ceremonies de la loi 
des Hebreux. 

Les Anges ne sont pas tours de purs esprits : decis- 
ion conforme du deuxieme Concile de Nicee. Exist- 
ence de creatures ou animaux raisonnables autres que 
Fhomme, et ay ant comme lui un corps et une ame. 
Et quoi ces animaux different-ils de Thomme ? Quelle 
est leur origine ? Descendent-ils, comme tous les 
hommes d'Adam, d'un seul individu ? Y a-t-il entre 



CHILDREN OF THE ELEMENTS' 407 

eux distinction de sexes ? Quelles sont leurs mceurs, 
leurs lois, leurs habitudes sociales ? Quelle sont la 
forme et 1' organization de leur corps ? Comparaison 
tiree de la formation du vin. Ces animaux sont-ils 
sujets aux maladies, aux infirmites physiques et 
morales, a la mort ? Naissent-ils dans le peche orig- 
inel ? Ont-ils ete rachetes par Jesus-Christ, et sont- 
ils capables de beatitude et de damnation ? Preuves 
de leur existence. 

De la Demonialite et des 1 Animaux Incubes et Succubes ' (' Chil- 
dren of the Elements ') ; ou Von prouve qu'il existe sur terre des 
creatures raisonnables outres que Vhomme, ay ant comme lui un corps 
et une time, naissant et mourant comme lui, rachetees par N. S. Jesus- 
Christ et capables de salut ou de damnation. Par le R. P. Louis 
Marie Sinistrari d'Ameno, de TOrdre des Mineurs Reformes de 
l'etroite Observance de Saint-Francois (xviie siecle). Publie 
d'apres le Manuscrit original decouvert a Londres en 1872, et 
traduit du Latin par Isidore Liseux. (Seconde Edition.) Paris, 
Isidore Liseux, 5 Rue Scribe, 1876. 

A translation of this exceedingly curious book into English was 
afterwards simultaneously published in London and Paris. 



CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH 



ROBERT FLOOD (ROBERTUS DE FLUCTIBUS), THE 
ENGLISH ROSICRUCIAN 

It is a reflection on the knowledge of the compilers 
of all books treating of the history and topography 
of Kent, that perhaps the most remarkable man born 
in it — because his pursuits lay out of the beaten track 
of recognition or of praise — should not be mentioned 
in any of the descriptive or biographical works that 
we have met with concerning that county — undoubt- 
edly one of the most interesting in England. In 
some general biographies and dictionaries the name of 
Robert Fludd, Doctor of Medicine, etc., does occur. 
But the notices concerning his life are very scanty, 
possibly because there was little material for them 
existent in his own age. We have, in our studies of 
the Rosicrucian doctrines, purposely made the life of 
Dr. Robert Flood an object of close examination. We 
have searched for every possible personal memorial 
of him. We have been rewarded with, however, but 
fragmentary matter. Our information concerning his 
life is quite the reverse of extensive, notwithstanding 
our intimacy with his writings. 

Our ideas and conviction in regard of this truly 
great man being what they are, the extreme curiosity, 
and the vivid interest, may be divined with which 
we set out on our first expedition to discover, and to 
make ourselves fully acquainted with his place of birth, 
and his own place and the seat of his family. It 
was in the afternoon of a summer day that we sought 

408 



THE GRAVE OF A ROSICRUCIaN 409 

out the village of Bersted, situate a few miles distant 
from Maidstone in Kent, on the Ashford Road. Flood 
is buried in the ancient church (a small one) of Bersted 
— a village, or rather hamlet, boasting an assemblage 
of larger or smaller houses around a green, none of 
any considerable pretension ; cottages — neat speci- 
mens of English rural cottages they may be called, 
with small gardens, varying gables, and crossed lat- 
tices. There are woody grounds and picturesque 
hop-plantations enclosing this quiet, homely-looking 
place ; with its solemn church up an elevation in the 
corner of this extensive triangular green — with excel- 
lent smooth cricket-space in the centre. The church 
in which he lies ! — what words for such a man. To 
us — or to any Rosi crucian student who knew who 
he was and what he had done — he was the whole 
country. His influence extended from, and vivified 
everything — this, the whole way from ' The Star ' — 
the old inn, or rather hotel, from which we had started 
in the morning in order to pilot our way thither ; 
through the quiet country, passing few people and 
only small groups of cattle straggling along the sun- 
shiny road. 

It was with feelings just as reverential, just as 
melancholy, and greatly as enthusiastic, as those with 
which we contemplated the tomb of Shakespeare 
in Stratford-on-Avon, that we stood (knowing the man, 
as it were, so well) silent and absorbed — revolving 
many — many thoughts — before the oblong slab of 
dark slate-coloured marble — (greatly like Shake- 
speare's again) — which covered the place of last deposit- 
ion of Robertus de Fluctibus — as into which parallel 
he had latinized, according to the usage mostly of the 
Elizabethan period, his name — Robert Fludd or Flood. 
Flood's monument occupies a large space of the wall 
of the chancel on the left hand, as you stand before 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the altar looking up the body of the small church 
towards the door. The monument is singularly like 
Shakespeare's, even allowing for the prevailing 
architectural fashion of the time. There is a seated 
half-length figure of Flood with his hand on a book, as 
if just raising his head, from reading, to look at you. 
The figure is nearly of life-size. There is, moreover, a 
very striking similarity in Dr. Flood's grand thinking 
countenance to that of Shakespeare himself, and his 
brow has all the same breadth, and is as equally suggest- 
ive of knowledge and of power. 

The church of Bersted is very small and old. The 
square tower of the church is covered with masses of 
dark ivy. The grassy ground slopes, with its burial 
mounds, from about the foundation of the old building 
towards the somewhat distant village of Bersted. The 
churchyard descends in picturesque inclination, and 
is divided by a low brick-wall ; over which, here and 
there, flowers and overgrowth have broadly scaled 
from the garden of the old-fashioned, though neat- 
looking rustic, picturesque parsonage. There is a 
winding green lane, with high hedges, which leads down 
to the village. All is open, and quietly rural. It is 
true English scenery, homely and still. The large 
trees, and the abundance of turfy cover over the whole 
ground- view, pleases. The rustic impression and the 
deep country silence befit that spot where one of the 
most extraordinary thinkers in the English roll of 
original men lies at rest. When we were in this neigh- 
bourhood, and on the first occasion that we sought 
out Bersted, it was a calm grey summer's afternoon. 
The still clouds, which seemed to prolong the grey gen- 
eral haze dwelling on the more distant landscape, were 
impressive of a happy — quietly happy — repose. And 
as we stood on our return towards Maidstone — having 
spent, we believe, upwards of three hours in meditat- 



ROBERT FLOOD 



411 



ive notice either in the church or musing and strolling 
round it — the slopes of the hopgrounds presented a 
field of view of light, lovely green. Out of this low- 
lying landscape to which we reverted, Bersted Church 
tower rose small. It has four sculptured bears (' Ber- 
sted, Bearstead ') at the four angles, for pinnacles, to 
the square tower. These miniature bears, perched 
upon the summit, looked to me at about half-a-mile's 
distance like four crows. The distant wooded hills 
showed faint to the eye. There was no wind. The 
air was warm and silent. The country was green and 
luxuriant. 

Robert Flood was a Brother of the Rosy-Cross. He 
is called the English Rosicrucian. To those who 
never heard his name, the titles of his books will suffice 
to prove the wonderful extent of his erudition, and the 
strange, mystical character of the man. We would 
warn every inquirer to place not the least reliance 
upon any account which they may meet of Robert 
Flood in any of the ordinary biographies, or in any 
Encyclopaedia or other book professing to give an 
account of the Rosicrucians. We beg the curious not 
to believe one word — except dates, and scarcely these 
— that are to be found in accepted scientific treatises, 
or otherwise, purporting to speak of Flood, or of his 
compeers. These are all at fault — and ignorant — 
particularly and generally. 

Robert Flood was the second son of Sir Thomas 
Flood, Treasurer of War to Queen Elizabeth. The 
name was originally Lloyd, and the family came from 
Wales. Robert Flood was born at Milgate House, 
of which edifice one corner still remains built in the 
manor-house which was erected on its site when the 
old house fell to ruin. Milgate House is situated near 
Bersted. Flood was born in the year 1574. He 
was entered at St. John's College, Oxford, in 1591. 



412 



THE ROSICRUCIAXS 



He travelled for six years in France, Spain, Italy, and 
Germany. He was a member of the College of Physi- 
cians, London. He was M.B., M.D., B.A., and M.A. 
The latter degree he took in 1605. He began to publish 
in 1616. He died at his house in Coleman Street, 
London, in the year 1637. Flood is also stated by Fuller 
to have lived in ' Fanchurch ' Street. 

The list of Flood's works comprise the following : — 

1. Utriusque Cosmi, M 'ai 'oris et Minoris, Technica Historia. 
Oppenheim. 1617. In Two Volumes. Folio. 

2. Tractatus Apologeticus Integritatem Socidatis de Rosea-Cruce 
defendens. Leyden, 1617. 

3. Monochordon Mundi Symphoniarum, sen RepUcatio ad 
Apclcgiam Johannis Kepleri. Francfort, 1620. 

4. Anatomia Theatrum Triplici Effigie Designation. At the 
same place, 1623. 

5. Philosophia Sacra et vere Christiana, sen Meteorologia Cosmica. 
At the same place. 1626. 

6. Medicina Catholica, sen Mysterium Artis Medicandi Sacra- 
num. The same. 1626. 

7. Integrum Morborum Mysterium. The same, 1631. 

8. Clavis Philosophic? et Alchymicv. The same, 1633. 

9. Philosophia Mosalca. Gondae. 163S. 

10. Pathologia Dcemoniaca. The same, 1640. 

The above account of Flood's Rosicrucian works is 
from Fuller's Worthies. 

There are notices of Dr. Flood in the Athena et Fasti 
Oxoniensis ; in Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary 
under the names of Flood, Mersenne, and Gassendi ; 
in Granger's Celebrated Characters ; and in Renaudot, 
Conferences Publiques ) torn. iv. page 87. Also in 
Brucker. 

Upon Flood's monument there are two marble- 
books bearing the following titles : — Misterium Cabalis- 
ticum, and Philosophia Sacra. There were originally 
eight books represented in all ; 1 studding 1 the front 
of the tablet (as the look of it may be described). 
The inscription to his memory is as follows : 



THE SOCIETY 



SECRET AND 



UNKNOWN 



4*3 



viii. Die Mensis vii. A°.D m ., m.d.c.xxxvii. (8th September 1627). 
Odoribus vrna vaporat crypta tegit cineres nec speciosa tvos ovod 
mortale minvs tibi. Te commitimus vnum ingenii vivent hie 
monumenta tui nam tibi qui similis scribit moritur-que sepulehrum 
pro tota eternum posteritate facit. Hoc monumentum Thomas 
Flood Gore Covrte in-oram apud Cantianos armiger infcelissimam 
in charissimi patrui sui memoriam erexit, die Mensis Augusti, 

MDCXXXVIII. 

In the life of the astronomer Gassendi will be found 
some mention of the career, and of the distinctions, 
cf Robert Flood. A work of Gassendi's bearing the 
title ' Epistolica Exercitatio, in qua precipua principia 
philosophies Roberti Fluddi deteguntur, et ad recentes 
illius libris adversus patrem Marinum Mersennum 
scriptos respondetur was printed at Paris in 1628. 
This piece was reprinted in the third volume of Gass- 
endi's works published at Paris in 1658, under the 
title of Examen Philosophies Fluddance, etc. Flood 
wrote two books against Mersennus, who had assailed 
his philosophy. The title of the first book was 
Sophia cum Moria Cert amen, in quo Lapis Lydins a 
falso structore Patre Marino Mersenno, monacho re- 
probatus] voluminis sui Babylonici in Genesi figurata 
accurate-examinat. This work was published in Folio 
at Francfort in 1629. The name of the second book 
was Summum bonorum, quod est verum magics, Cabalce, 
Alchymice, Fratrum Rosce-Crucis Virorum. subjectum 
indictarum scientiarum laudem, in insignis calumniator is 
Fr. Mar. Mersenni dedecus publicatum } per Joachim 
Frizium, 1629. 

In this Book, which we now bring to a close in its 
Fourth Edition, we have traced and expounded the 
philosophy of the authentic Rosicrucians, as developed 
in the folios of the celebrated Dr. Flood, ' Robertus 
de Fluctibus We are the first Author who has 
brought forward Flood's name to the reading world, 
justified his claims, and made him known through 



4 i4 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the most laboured and long-studied translation with 
continual reference to hundreds of books in all lan- 
guages, dead and living, which bore reference to Flood's 
sublimest philosophical speculations. All the world 
has heard of the Rosicrucians — few or none have 
ever taken the trouble to ascertain whether the 
stupendous and apparently audacious claims of these 
philosophers were rightly or wrongly estimated-— 
that is, whether to be adjudged as founded on the rock 
of truth, or seeking steadiness and root only in the 
sands of delusion. The Author began his inquiries, 
in the year 1850, in a spirit of the utmost disbelief ; 
thus taught by the world's assumptions and opinions. 
Much of this indoctrinated preoccupation the wise 
man has to unlearn in his progress through life. Fogs, 
and prejudices, and prepossessions cleared from the 
Author's mind as he advanced. 

After the very considerable space of thirty-six 
years of study of the Rosicrucians, the Author of this 
work ends (as he ends). Let the candid reader, him- 
self, judge in what frame of mind the Author of the 
( Rosicrucians ' concludes. How should any one com- 
plete an inquiry in regard to the Majestic Brothers of 
the Rosy Cross, otherwise the Rosicrucians ? The 
story of the Rosicrucians is of the widest interest. 
The proof of this fact lies in the accumulation of 
letters from persons in every condition of life addressed 
to the Authors of the present work since the publicat- 
ion of the First Edition from all parts of the w r orld ; 
anonymously, or with particulars of names, etc. 

The celebrated author of the Confessions of an 
English Opium Eater (Thomas de Quincey), in his 
Rosicrucians and the Free-Masons, originally pub- 
lished in The London Magazine of January 1824, also 
continued in the succeeding number, has this remark- 
able passage : ' Rosicrucianism is not Freemasonry. 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY 



415 



The exoterici, at whose head Bacon stood, and who 
afterwards composed the Royal Society of London, 
were the antagonist party of the Theosophists, Cab- 
balists, and Alchemists. At the head of whom stood 
Fludd ; and from whom Freemasonry took its rise/ 
Thus we leave the Rosicrucians — as men — (just as 
we ought to leave them) — in the same mystery as that 
state of really impenetrable mystery in which we find 
them. Let the mask and the 4 mystery ' still remain 
before them, concealing them, and their purposes in 
the world. — As it is enjoined I 



CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH 



NOTICES OF ANCIENT AUTHORITIES 

The following extraordinary work — which is so rare 
and so valuable (see below) in its original edition, that 
we have reason to believe the Authors of the ' Rosicru- 
cians ' can congratulate themselves in being the 
possessors, in all probability, of the only copy in 
existence — was suppressed, wherever found, on its 
appearance. The author, in reality, was never known. 
It is considered probable that this book had a para- 
mount effect in bringing about, and in compassing the 
success of, the Reformation. 

Dispntatio Nova contra Mulieres ; qua Probatur 
eas Homines non esse. Anno mdxcv. Theses de 
Mulieribus quod Homines non sint. Cum in Samaria, 
ut in campo omnis licentiae, liberum sit credere et do 
cere, Jesum Christum, Filium Dei Salvatorem et 
Redeptorem animarum nostrarum, una cum Spiritu 
Sancto non esse Deum, licebit opinor etiam mihi 
credere, quod multo minus est, mulieres scilicet non 
esse Homines — et quod inde sequitur — Christum ergo 
pro iis non esse passum, nec eas salvari. Si enim non 
solum in hoc regno tolerantur, sed etiam a magnatibus 
praemiis afhciuntur, qui blasphemant Creatorem, cur 
ego exilium aut supplicium timere debeo, qui sim- 
pliciter convicior creaturam ? praesertim cum eo modo 
ex Sacris Uteris probare possim, mulierem non esse 
hominem, quo illi probant Christum non esse Deum. 

Admonitio Theologicce Facultatis in Academia Wite- 
bergensi, ad scholasticam juventutem, de libello famoso 

413 



NOTICES OF ANCIENT AUTHORITIES 417 



et blasphemo recens sparso, cujus titulus est : Dis- 
putatio Nova contra Mulieres, qua ostenditur, eas 
homines non esse. Witenbergae. Excudebat Vidua 
Matthaei Welaci, Anno mdxcv (1595). 

Defensio Sexus Muliebris, Opposita futilissimae Dis- 
putationi recens editae, qua suppresso Authores et 
Typographi nomine blaspheme contenditur: Mulieres 
Homines non Esse. Simon Gediccus S.S. Theol. Doct., 
etc. Lipsiae, Apud Henricum Samuelem Scipionem, 
Anno mdccviii (1708). 

Auctor hujus Dissert, rarissima credit : valeat 
Acidalius. Vide, inter alios, Freytagii Analecta — de 
libris rarioribus, p. 5. (Very ancient handwriting 
in the copy itself) ' Acidalius died, aged 28 years only, 
1595/ Hallam'sL^. Hist. p. 14. This is only surmise. 
The -authorship of the book is unknown. It was 
rigorously suppressed. 



E E 



CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH 



MYSTERIES OF THE ANCIENTS 
THE ARK OF NOAH 

Note to Plate ' Mysterinni ' : The explanation of this 
engraving will be found at a previous page. The 
ancient volume from which it is taken is very rare, 
and bears the following title : 

Antiquitatum Iudaicarum libri ix : 

In qiiis, prceter Ivdcee, Hierosolymorutn, et Templi 
Salomonis accuratam, delineationem, prcecipui Sacri 
ac profani gentis ritus describuntur (auctore Benedicto 
Aria Montano Hispalensi). Adiectis formis seneis. 
Lvgdani Batavorum. Ex officina Planteniana apud 
Franciscum Raphelengium — 1595. 

The Ark of Noah — the medium of escape from the 
Deluge, and the mythic means of the perpetuation of 
the Human Family (afterwards Race). The Post- 
Diluvian ' Signs of the Zodiac ' are here correctly 
designated as in number ' Twelve \ Let the judicious 
Reader remark that twelve times thirty are Three- 
Hundred-and-Sixty, which is not the number of the 
degrees of this symbolical plan. There are twelve 
divisions in this ark. The centre space is that through 
which the ' Dove or' Raven \ escaped out into the 
' open ' in search of its new home, or into the restored 
world when the waters ' went down ' or ' disappeared \ 
Each of the twelve spaces in the accompanying plan 
contains twenty-five degrees, which make an aggregate 
of three hundred degrees. The mythical figure con- 

418 



tun ARK OP NOAH 



tained in the Ark is presumably that of Noah. It is 
also evidently the symbolical figure of the ' Saviour ' f 
and typically only that of Noah ; for the hands are 
( crossed and the feet and hands bear the marks of 
the ' Incision ' — the ' Nails of the Crucifixion (or 
Passion) ' . Twenty-five, the number of the degrees 
in each space or sign of this ' Noachic Ark Area, 01 
Chest (Gigantic), are the number of the Knights of the 
Garter ; with the reserved ' twenty-sixth or Kingly 
or Sovereign Seat. In this respect the ark may be 
regarded as the grand mythic ' Idea ' of the ' Round 
Table ' ; as that was the production of the central 
mythic ' Idea ' of the 1 Sangreal or 1 Sangrail ' — 
Refer to the Engravings, and to the Rosicrncian comment 
throughout both parts. See pages generally, and the 
whole of the Chapters referring to the ' origin ' of 
the Order of the ' Garter \ 



CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH 

CABALISTIC ILLUSTRATIONS. THE SAN-GREALE, GREAL, 
OR HOLY GREALE 

The engraving No. 4 at the end gives the mystical idea, 
or suggestion, of the Round Table of the Knights of 
King Arthur, which is again typical of the San Greal. 
The romance of Guyot, or at least the traditional fable 
of the San Greal, spread over France, Germany, and 
England. In the twelfth century the dogma of tran- 
substantiation not being yet defined by the Church, 
the chalice, the mark of the Knights Templars, had 
not the deep mystic meaning which it received in the 
following century. The graal signifies a vase. The 
Sat2 Greal is identified with the vessel in which Jesus 
celebrated the Holy Supper, and which also was used 
to receive His blood flowing from the wound inflicted 
upon Him by the centurion Longinus. 

Walter Mapes, the historian of the San Greal, ascribes 
to it a supernatural origin. He gave out that God 
was its real author, and had revealed it, in a celestial 
vision, to a holy hermit of Britain towards the year 
a.d. 720. This writer makes Joseph one of the 
coryphcei of his history of the San Greal. After forty- 
two years of captivity Joseph of Arimathsea, the 
guardian of the Grail or Greal, is at last set at liberty 
by the Emperor Vespasian. In possession of the sacred 
vessel, and a few more relics, and accompanied by his 
relations and disciples Hebron and Alain the Fisher- 
men, he travels over a part of Asia, where he converts 
Enelach, King of Sarras. He then goes to Rome, and 
thence to Britain, where he preaches the gospel and 

420 



THE SAN-GREALE 



421 



performs thirty-four miracles. He settles in the Is- 
land Yniswitrin, Isle of Glass (the Greal is of emerald, 
and consequently green), or Gtetonbury, where he 
founds an Abbey (Glastonbury Abbey), and institutes 
the Round Table (Arthur did this), in imitation of the 
Holy Supper, which was partaken of at a ' Round 
Table ' with the Twelve Disciples, in their mythical 
double-places, twenty-four in all, and with the double 
chief-seat, or ( cathedra for the President or the 
' Saviour \ Lastly, the apostle of the Britons builds 
a palace, in which he preserves his precious relics, 
the Sacred Cup (refused to the Laity as a communion), 
which takes the name of San Greal, the bloody spear 
(the ' upright ' of the St. George's Cross, to whom the 
■ Garter ' is dedicated), with which the centurion 
Longinus pierced the side of the Lord, from whence 
issued 1 blood and water 1 — the Rosicrucian heraldic 
colours (royal), Mars — Red ; Luna — Argent (or 
' Fire ' and ■ Water '). There are Eight Angels, one 
to each half-heaven, or dark or light sides, guarding 
the Four Corners of the World. 

The Sacred Cup is identified with the vessel of the 
Holy Supper. The Templars are the successors of 
the Knights of the Round Table. Their successors 
again were the Knights of Malta, with their Eight 
' Langues or Nations — each represented in a blade 
of, or ray, of the Eight-pointed red Templar Cross. 

The Temple Church, London, was dedicated to St. 
Mary. The Greal is a sort of oracle. It is, so to 
speak, at the orders of the ' Mother of God to execute 
all ' Her ' commands. Parsival — the German cham- 
pion-hero — thinks of transporting the Greal to the 
East, from whence it originally came. He takes the 
San Greal, embarks at Marseilles with the Templars, 
and arrives at the court of his brother Feirifix in 
India. The Sacred Cup manifests a desire that Par- 



422 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

sival should remain possessor of the 1 Greal \ and only 
change his name into that of Prester John (Prestre, 
or Pretre, Jehan, or John). Parsival and the Temp- 
lars settle in India. After the disappearance of the 
Greal in the West, King Arthur and the Knights of 
the Round Table, losing the ' central object or the 
' Rose ' (Rosicrucianism) of the Table, go on a scatt- 
ered (Knight-Errant or romantic) championship in 
search of it. They travel .over the world — but in 
vain. They cannot find the ' Greal \ For it is for 
ever hidden in the far ' East', or in the land of the 
' Sun \ Wolfram von Eschenbach tells us that Meister 
Guyot-le-Provencal found at Toledo an Arabian 
book, written by an astrologer named Flegetanis, con- 
taining the story of the marvellous vase called 'Greal \ 
The sacred vase, or the San Greal, was placed, 
according to the myth of Guyot, in a Temple (or 
Chapel), guarded by Knights Templets or Templois 
(Knights Templars). The Temple of the Greal was 
placed upon a mountain in the midst of a thick wood. 
The name of this mysterious mountain (like the Mount 
Meru of the Hindoos and Olympus of the Greeks) 
hints sublimity and secrecy. Guyot calls it Mont 
Salvagge, wild or inaccessible mountain (or ' Holy 
Way ' ). The Greal was made of a wonderful 1 Stone ' 
called Exillis, which had once been the most brilliant 
jewel in the ' Crown of the Archangel Lucifer ' — 
the gem was emerald (green ; Friday ; the unlucky 
in one sense, the ' sacred ' woman's day in another 
sense). This famous legendary stone was struck out 
of the crown or helmeted double-rayed or double- 
springing 1 winged ' crown — mythically — of the Prince 
of the Archangels (' Lucifer 1 ), in his conflict with 
the opposing * general of the skies 'w— Saint Michael, 
the ' Champion of Heaven ' ; and the combative 
guardian of innocence and of ^ ' virginity ' (mark). 



JOSEPH OF ARIMATHMA 



423 



This immortal ' Stone ' — the Greal — fell into the 
' Abyss \ It was mythologically recovered. 

The 1 Stone 9 was brought from heaven (rescue) by 
Angels, and left to the care of Titurel, the First King 
of the Greal, who transmitted it to Amfortas, the 
Second King, whose sister ' Herze '-loide was the 
mother of Parsival, the Third King of the San Greal. 
(These are the Three Kings of Cologne, or the Three 
Magi or Astrologers.) A great many towns pretended 
to possess this holy relic. In 1247 * ne Patriarch of 
Jerusalem sent the San Greal to King Henry the 
Third of England, as having belonged to Nicodemus 
(see the Gospel of Nicodemus) and Joseph of Ari- 
mathaea. The inhabitants of Constantinople, about 
the same time, also fancied that a vessel which they 
had long esteemed as a sacred relic was the San Greal. 
The Genoese also felt certain that their santo catino 
(Catillo, v. a. (L.) ' to lick dishes ' ; Catinus, i. m, 
(L.) ' a dish ' ) was nothing else than the San Greal. 
The same (or similar) modifications of the myth are 
to be noticed in a romance, in prose, entitled Perci- 
val-le-Gallois. Not only is the Round Table con- 
sidered in this book as an imitation of the ' Holy 
Supper ', but the author goes so far as to give it the 
name of San Greal itself. In the Romance of Merlin, 
written towards the end of the thirteenth century, it 
is said that the Round Table instituted by Joseph in 
imitation of the Holy Supper was called ' Graal 
that Joseph induced Arthur's father to create a third 
Round Table in honour of the Holy Trinity. 

The San Greal : an Inquiry into the Origin and 
Signification of the Romances of the San Greal. By 
Dr. F. G. Bergmann, Dean of the Faculty of Letters 
at Strasburg, and Member of the Royal Society of 
Antiquaries, Copenhagen. Edinburgh : Edmonston 
and Douglas, 1870. We quote the above in parts. 



Round Table 
(Mythical) 




1. Rose * Crucified ' 

2. Rose 'restored to Life' 

3. 'Consummation' 



CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH 



THE ROUND TABLE IS THE RATIONALE OR APOTHEOSIS 
OF THE MOST NOBLE THE ORDER OF THE GARTER 



The Round Table of King Arthur is a Grand Mythol- 
ogical Synthesis. It is a whole Mythology in itself. 
It is perennial. It is Christian. By tradition, the 
Round Table of King Arthur devolves from the very 
earliest period. The illustration opposite a previous 
page was copied from the original with great care and 
attention. King Arthur, in the principal seat, is 
idealized in the person of King Henry the Eighth, in 
whose time the Round Table is supposed to have been 
repaired and refaced. In the Revolution, Cromwell's 
soldiery, after the capture of Winchester, and in the 
fury at the imputed idea of idolatry (the Round Table 
is the English ' Palladium made a target of it. 
The marks of many balls are still conspicuous. 

The five-leaved Roses (Red and White Roses ; 
Rhodion, Rhodes — Knights of Rhodes or of Malta, the 



Honi-Soit Qui Mal-y-Pense 




THE ROSE-EN-SOLEIL 425 

successors of the Templars) typify the Ten Original 
Signs of the Zodiac. Red-Rose, Five Signs (Aspiration 
or Ascension) ; White Rose, Five Signs (or Leaves), 
Descension (or ' Con '-descension, or S.S., or Holy 
Ghost (the key of the whole apotheosis ; according to 
the mystical Jacob Bcehmen). 

The whole is radiant (notwithstanding that the rays 
are green ; otherwise expressive of the ' Lima Viridis f , 
sen ' Benedicta Viriditas — Rosicrucian). (See former 
pages) out from the ' seed-spot or ' Golden Sun ' 
(Grand Astronomical Central Flame), in the centre. 
This double-rose, ' barbed ' or ' thorned Sol, is (in 
this form) the Tudor Rose (the Rose-en-Soleil, be it 
remembered, was another of the Tudor badges) ; 
denoting the union of the Houses of York and Lancaster 
in the person of Harry the Eighth. 

It will be observed that each Knight of the Round 
Table is seated as at the base of an obelisk. The 
architectural ' obeliscar ' form (rayed, or spread, or 
bladed) is universal, all the world over, both in old 
times and modern times. The Egyptian Obelisks are 
sacred to the Sun. The Paladins of Charlemagne 
were Twelve in number. The Marshals of France 
should be twelve in number. The Judges of England, 
according to old constitutional rationale, should be 
twelve ; as the number of a Jury are twelve. All 
these are mythical of the Twelve Signs, or Divisions, 
of the Zodiac, the Twelve Jewish Tribes, the twelve 
oracular stones in the breastplate of the High Priest 
of the Jews, and, in the Christian aspect of the mys- 
ticism, the Twelve Apostles ; with the ' Reprobate 
Condemned Central Sign ' as Judas, the Traitor. The 
whole is Cabalistic in the highest degree ; and there- 
fore ordinarily unintelligible. It signifies the Second 
Dispensation, or the astrological reproduction and 
rearrangement of the Zodiac, when the original Ten 



426 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Signs of the Ecliptic (mythically the gladius of the 
Archangel Michael) became Twelve ; and when the 
mystic system underwent the greatest change — 
presenting a new traditionary and reproductive face. 
(Refer to Chapter on the origin of the Order of the 
Garter, previous, and thenceforward.) 

510. Perceval Le Galloys ; Tresplaisante et Recreative Hystoire 
du Trespreulx et vaillant Chevallier Perceval le galloys jadis chevallier 
de la Table ronde. Lequel acheva les adventures du sainct Graal. 
Avec aulchuns faictz belliqueulx du noble chevallier Gauvain. Et 
aultres Chevallier s estans au temps du noble Roy Arthus, non au- 
paravant Imprime. On les vend au Pallais a Paris. En la boutique 
de Jehan logis. Jehan sainct denis, et Galliot du pre. [A la fin] 
Et fut acheve de Irnprimer le premier jour de Septembre. Lan 
mil cinq cents trente [1530]. Folio. Black iUttrv, fine woodcut 
border to title, woodcuts, old french olive morocco extra, gilt 
edges, 135/. Aug. 1879. 29 New Bond Street. 



CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH 



REMARKS UPON TWO CURIOUS BOOKS 

The following old book is a very extraordinary one ; 
as the design and tendency of it will puzzle most 
persons who are acquainted with the nature of the 
antagonistic relations which were supposed to exist 
between the Church of Rome and the Rosicrucians. 
The book is exceedingly scarce and valuable : 

Rosa Jesuitica, oder Jesuitische Rottgesellen, das 
ist, Eine Frag ob die Zween Or den ^ der ganandten Ritter 
von der Neerscharen Jesu y und der Rosen-Creuzer 
ein einiger Ordensen : per J. P. D. a S. Jesuitarum 
Protectorum. Prague, 1620. (4-to.) This is a truly 
curious tract upon the ' relations of the Jesuits and 
the Rosicrucians \ 

A very curious book upon the subject of the peculiar 
and fanciful attributed notions of the Rosicrucians, 
and which drew a large amount of surprised and ' left- 
handed ' attention when it first appeared, was that 
which bore the title (in its improved edition — pub- 
lished without a date) : Comte de Gabalis, ou En- 
tretiens sur Les Sciences Secretes. Renouvelle et aug- 
ment e d'une Lettre sur ce sujet. This book was brought 
out at Cologne. The printer's name was Pierre 
Marteau. Bound up with the copy in the possession 
of the present Authors of the Rosicrucians is another 
volume bearing the following title : La Suite du Comte 
de Gabalis ; ou Nouveaux Entretiens sur les Sciences 
Secretes } touchant La Nouvelle Philosophic This latter 

work was published at Amsterdam, with no year 

437 



428 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



mentioned of its publication, by Pierre Mortier. Upon 
the title-page of the first-named of these books ap- 
pears the ' rescript ' ' Quod tanto impendio absconditur, 
etiam solum-modo demonstrare, destruere est.' — 
Tertullian.* 

These works were considered — although written 
from the questioning and cautiously satirical point 
— as unwelcome and even obnoxious ; even among 
those who freely commented on religion. Neverthe- 
less they provoked (and still provoke) extraordinary 
curiosity. 



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST 



REMARKS RELATING TO THE GREAT MYSTIC, 
ROBERT 1 DE FLUCTIBUS ' 

The noted mystic, Jacob Bcehm, was born in the 
year 1575, and is said to have died in the year 
1619. He was undoubtedly acquainted with the 
volumes of Robertus de Fluctibus, known as the 
1 English Rosicrucian ' . 

There is considerable doubt whether there were 
not two Robert Fludds, and whether, in reality, the 
theories and the mystic ideas of the one were not 
accepted as arising from the other. The following 
attestation will sufficiently establish these important 
facts : 

' Quelques bibliographes ont confondu Robert Flood 1 
(the Rosicrucian Philosopher), * avec un autre Robert, 
dominicain Anglais, ne a York, et qui florissait dans 
le 14 siecle. 

1 Ce religieux avait fait aussi des recherches et 
laisse des ecrits sur les Mysteres de la Nature, et ce 
qui r avait fait surnommer " Perscrutator " (le " Cher- 
cheur "). Jean Pits et Jacques Echard, d'apres Jean 
Leland, lui attribuent : De impressionibus aeris ; de 
Mirabilibus Elementorum de Magia Cceremoniali ; de 
Mysteriis Secretorum ; et Correctorium Alchymice.' 
— Biographie Universelle : — Tome Quinzieme, p. 109, 
et supra. 

The character of the above books by Robert Flood, 
the Dominican, and the close similarity of his studies 

429 



430 



THE R0SICRUC1ANS 



with those of the famous Robert Flood, or 1 Robertus 
de Fluctibus \ of Milgate House, in Kent, would seem 
to come very near to proof, that there was some family 
descent from the one to the other. The circumstances 
will at all events go a long way towards establishing 
a possible connexion or relationship between the 
first Robert and the second Robert ; though divided 
through such a long space of time as intervenes 
between the fourteenth century and the period of 
James the First and Charles the First. 

In all the matters treated of in this book, in the 
meaning and purpose of art — such as music particu- 
larly — the grand philosophical contention is, whether 
the world may be said to have 1 sprung ' — to apply 
the word thus — from feeling, or was constructed — 
so to describe the mythic making of nature — from 
science. In this distinction lies everything of philos- 
ophic abstraction in regard to the subjects 1 Power* 
and 1 Love \ as originators of the scheme of things. 

We may put the question in other words as a 
theosophic speculation, whether ' Man ' — and there- 
fore ' art ' — is from the head, or the heart. We 
think entirely the latter, in as far as ' Love ' is greater 
than ' Wisdom \ and is its ruler. In this great fact 
lies all the hope of the world. By wisdom and justice 
the world is naught. Mercy and love (the ' Immortal 
Pity ') alone saves the world. Therefore contrition. 
Therefore sacrifice. Therefore submission — submission 
and innocence 1 like as little children ' . 

It follows from the above that to this possible 
relaxing of the sternness of punishment (' Justice ') 
the saints penetrated. This means the theosophic, 
all-sufficient (because accepted) ' Propitiation/ or 
the sacrifice of the ' Saviour or of the ' sensitive 
side of human nature '. In this emotion from the 
heart lies all religion, and all that we can know of 



'OFFICE' OF THE 'ROSARY* 431 



ourselves of hope. All that by any possibility we can 
know of ourselves — ' of hope \ 
The following are certain Masonic observations : 

(I. N. R. I.) These significant letters (or symbols) may be inter- 
preted : ' Igne Nova Renovatur Integra \ 
INRI : Jes. Naz. Rex. Judce, 

The office of the Rosary contains fifteen repetitions 
of the ' Lord's Prayer \ It comprises One Hundred 
and Fifty Salutations of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
In the astronomical and astrological reference this 
implies : Firstly, the fifteen lunations (half of thirty 
days), or the feminine half-dark, mystic, naturally 
unconscious — magic — insensible corporeal changes 
incident of each month. The second instance carries 
reference to the magic semi-diameter of the ever- 
revolving solar circle, or the mythical 1 Ezekiel's 
wheel to which we have referred (cabalistically) 
in various places. 



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND 



ALCHEMY. THE POWER OF PRODUCING GOLD AND 
SILVER, THROUGH ARTIFICIAL MEANS. DOCTRINE 
OF THE ROSICRUCIANS 

The persuasion as to the possibility of the converti- 
bility of the metals, and as to the existence of a master- 
means of improving and intensifying generally through 
all nature, until the confine was approached ; and 
then by supernatural method (that is, supernatural 
to the world of man), that this border-line or limit 
(apparently so invincible) was passed over (indeed 
evaded) with power of return into the world with the 
fruits of the daring exploration openly in the hands : 
— this idea, which nothing could drive out of the 
mind, was fixed — spite of all the sense of those who 
supposed such contradictions. The proper cool-headed 
realization of the impossibilities, so far as Nature 
made them impossibilities, was not entertained. 

There was much that urged — as a prime motive — 
such destruction as that effected by the Caliph Omar, 
on his conquest of Alexandria, in his committal to 
the flames of the famous Alexandrian Library. This 
destruction is usually taken as a reason for this elimin- 
ation or extinguishment of previous accumulations 
of such imagined priceless value. It was not jealousy, 
but fear, that actuated the Caliph Omar. 
r The object of the Sultan, in regard to this immense 
collection of writings, is well known, and is usually 
attributed to the dogmatism and narrowness of his 
views in regard to his Mohammedan beliefs : — namely, 

432 



THE PHILOSOPHERS' STONE 



433 



that if the books contained any philosophy which 
justified or explained, or enforced, the religion of 
Mahomet, or any wisdom which could be interpreted 
as explanatory of it, it was needless, because all such 
was already contained in the Koran ; and that if it 
taught other things, or advanced any contrary religi- 
ous beliefs, it was correspondingly mischievous, and 
as such should be relentlessly destroyed. Thus the 
Caliph took up such a position that he was right both 
ways. All the secrets of alchemy were supposed to 
be contained in the Alexandrian Library. 

The sun is alchemic gold. The moon is alchemic 
silver. In the operation of these two potent spirits, 
or mystic rulers of this world, it is supposed, astrologic- 
ally, that all phenomena are produced. It is a com- 
mon opinion, and it is a generally assumed idea, even 
among the most learned, that that which is called 
The Philosophers'' Stone is a mere fable. It prevails 
as an assurance in all books of instruction, or of learn- 
ing, that it is purely romantic — a delusion — a wild 
idea — poetical, and therefore necessarily untrue. But 
all poetry — even poetry — is true enough in a certain 
way, and whilst it is conceived in the mind, just the 
same as the colour of the flower, which has nothing 
to do with the flower. It is very difficult to get over 
the assertions of competent persons as to the possi- 
bility of making gold. The chemical records abound 
with accounts of its artificial production, and of its 
having been exhibited under extraordinary — and cer- 
tainly (necessarily) under secret circumstances. A 
multitude of ancient and modern philosophers have 
contended that in the secret spirits of nature, urging 
towards the light, and towards the sun, which is gold 
(Chrysos, or the ' Saviour '), there was a movement 
in all matter towards extrication, and therefore out 
of the curse of nothingness, or of ' matter \ Thence 

FF 



434 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



the precious gold, prepared and purged by the scorch- 
ing fire. As to the possibility of metals being trans- 
muted from one into the ' other, ' doctored as we 
may say, in the skill of the alchemists, and ' purged ' 
by the fierce conflagration, clear of their defacements, 
defilements, and diseases, into the divine angelic gold 
— responsive to the sun's brightness ; — as to this 
stupendous art — believed in by the ancients, wholly 
discredited by the moderns — Libavius brings for- 
ward many instances in his treatise De Natura Metal- 
lorum. He produces accounts to this effect out of 
Geberus, Hermes, Arnoldus, Guaccius, Thomas Aquinas 
{Ad Fratrem, c. I), Bernardus Comes, Joannes Rungius, 
Baptista Porta, Rulpeus, Dornesius, Vogelius, Penotus, 
Quercetanus, and others. Franciscus Picus (in his 
book De Auro y sec. 3, c. 2) gives eighteen instances 
in which he saw gold produced by alchemical trans- 
mutation. 

The principles and grounds for concluding that 
there may be such an art possible as alchemy, we 
shall sum up as follows. Firstly, it is assumed that 
every metal consists of mercury as a common versatile 
and flexible base, from which all metals spring, 
and into which they may be ultimately reduced by 
art. Secondly, the species of metals and their specific 
and essential forms are not subject to transmutation, 
but only the individuals ; in other words, what is 
general is abstract and invisible, what is particular 
is concrete and visible, and therefore can be acted 
upon. Thirdly, all metals differ, not in their com- 
mon nature and matter, but in their degree of perfect- 
ion or purity towards that invisible light to which 
all matter tends for its relief or rescue — that celestial, 
imperishable glory, which necessarily in the world 
of sentience or possibility of recognition to itself (or 
oneness), must have ' matter ' (in this world made 



ALCHEMICAL IDEAS 



435 



up of senses, and of the avenues to those senses) as 
its ' mask or the vehicle in which it is to be, and 
out of and exterior to which all is magic or miracle. 
Fourthly, art or design or contrivance in its own respects, 
and directed by the immortal resource or intelligence 
which is a matter of spiritual tradition, a pitying gift 
to man in his lost or fallen state, surmounteth and 
transcendeth Nature — as we see every day in the 
mastery of the soul of man over his fleshly lusts, which 
otherwise would urge him into daily ruin. For Art 
directed upon Nature, may in a short while — seeing 
the end of things, and not being < put-off * by their 
appearances only — perfect that which Nature, by 
itself, is a thousand years in accomplishing. Fifthly, 
God has created every metal of its own kind, and 
hath implanted in them a really vital, restless prin- 
ciple of growth, struggling against diseases and 
interruptions ; as we see in the efforts of the metals 
— especially in the perfect metal, gold, born of 
the sun — which is the king of the material, and 
which in its healthy state overflows with magnetic 
seed or sparks of magic light, welcomed by the 
aerial world, and usurped only by the devil for 
his bad purposes in this world of dazzling shows. 
The true spiritual side of this golden well-spring of 
lucidity — free of all debasement of matter — is never 
seen in this world. But it is the medium of connex- 
ion, and is the golden bridge — one-half gold, as it 
refers backwards to man from the fountain of all 
life and light, the Sun, and the other half forward, 
into the celestial and heavenly eternal God's light ! 
Thus gold, and light, as its consequence, can by art 
(assisted by the angels, and farthered by prayer) be 
evoked, be made to fructify and grow, and can inspire 
and multiply, and take in all matter. 

We will now compress (into certain well-considered 



436 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



passages) some of the ideas of that very remarkable 
chemist and speculative philosopher, B. V. Van Hel- 
mont, advanced in his Paradoxal Discourses concern- 
ing the Macrocosm and Microcosm, or the Greater and 
Lesser World, and Their Union. 1 

Metals consist universally of a hot and a cold sul- 
phur. They are as of male and female ; in respect 
to both of which, the more intimately they be united 
or naturally interwoven, the nearer those metals 
approach to the nature of gold. And from the differ- 
ence and disparity of this union (according to the 
proportion and quantity of every one), arises the dis- 
tinction of all metals and minerals — that is, in the 
due proportions, as the said sulphurs are more or less 
united in them. 

If metals be produced, and consist by the union 
of these two, where then is there room for a third 
principle in metals — which is vulgarly called salt — 
and which is spoken of by the chemists ; who make 
salt, sulphur, and mercury the principles of all metals ? 

But this is indeed only an enigmatical speech of 
the chemists. For when we see that the superfluous 
combustible sulphur, which is found in great quantity 
in the ore of the perfectly united metals, is by mortifi- 
cation, transmutation, or calcination, changed into 
an acid salt, it ceaseth to be sulphur. Now, foras- 
much as all of the said sulphur can be changed into 
a salt, so as that it cannot be rechanged into brim- 
stone back again (because the salt serveth only as a 
means to dissolve the two perfect sulphurs in ordei 
to unite 'them) ; and whereas the white incombustible 
sulphur can never be changed into salt, how can we 
then make out three parts or principles which concui 

1 London : Printed by J. C. and Freeman Collins, for Robert 
Kettlewel, at The Hand and Scepter, near S. Dunstan's Church 
in Fleet Street. 1685. 



MEDIUM OF ALCHEMICAL PRODUCTION 437 

to the composition of metals ? For two fathers to 
one mother would be monstrous and superfluous ; 
forasmuch as both of them are but one and the same. 
Likewise, also, there cannot be two mothers to one 
father, in order to the bringing-forth of one birth, 
for so there would be two births, out of each mother 
one. For it cannot be denied that to generate a 
child, whether boy or girl (of which the one hath more 
of the father's nature and property, the other more 
of the mother's), there needs only a union of man 
and wife, and it is impossible that a third thing should 
be superadded essentially. 

This visible, glorious, spiritual body may lead us 
to endless glorious thoughts and meditations ; namely, 
if we consider that in all the sands created by God, 
there is a little gold and silver from whence all other 
beings do exist and have their being, as proceeding 
from their father, the Sun, and their mother, the 
Moon. From the sun, as from a living and spiritual 
gold, which is a mere fire, and beyond all thoroughly 
refined gold, and, consequently, is the common and 
universal first created mover (even as is the heart 
of man), from whence all moveable things derive all 
their distinct and particular motions ; and also from 
the moon, as from the wife of the sun, and the common 
mother of all sublunary things. 

And forasmuch as man is, and must be, the compre- 
hensive end of all creatures, and the Little World (in 
whom all seeds exist and are perfected, which thence- 
forth can never be annihilated), we shall not find it 
strange that he is counselled (Rev. hi. 18) to buy 
gold ' tried in the fire ' (the Greek words imply gold 
all or thoroughly fired, or all a mere fire), that he 
may become rich and like unto the sun, as on the 
contrary he becomes poor when he doth abuse the 
arsenical poison, so that his silver by the fire must 



438 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



be burnt to dross, which comes to pass when he will 
keep and hold the ' menstrual blood ' (out of which 
he in part exists), for his own property in his own 
thoughts and outworkings, and doth not daily offer 
up the same in the fire of the sun, to the end the 
' Woman ' may be 1 clothed with the Sun and 
become a ' Sun and thereby rule over the Moon ; that 
is to say, that he may get the Moon ' under his feet 
as we may see, Rev. xii. i. 

Forasmuch as we are here treating concerning gold, 
it will not be inconvenient to query yet further, 
Whether is anything more to be considered and taken 
notice of about gold — namely, How many sorts of 
gold there be ? And how gold is properly formed ? 

There are three sorts of gold. 

Firstly. There is a white gold, which hath the 
weight and all the qualities of gold except the colour ; 
for it is white as silver, and hath either lost its colour 
or hath not yet attained it. 

Secondly. The second sort of gold is of a pale 
yellow colour. 

Thirdly. The third sort is a high, yellow-coloured 
gold. But how little the tincture or colour doth, that 
is in gold, we may perceive from what follows : 

1. In that the first sort, namely, the white gold, in 
its substance is as ponderous as any other gold, from 
which hint or instance we may see how little the 
colour conduceth to the being of gold ; seeing it is 
not at all, or very hardly to be perceived in its weight 
and substance. 

2. The whole body of common gold is nothing else, 
and cannot consist of anything else, but silver, which 
is a perfect body, and wants nothing of being gold 
but the fiery male tincture. If now it should happen 
that a certain quantity of silver should be tinged into 
gold with one grain of tincture, and that the said 



CHEMISTRY OF THE METALS 439 



grain should be only sufficient to turn it into gold, 
without giving it the true colour to supply this, we 
have already showed that the gold-beaters and gilders 
know how to give it a fixed yellow gold-colour. 

It may be further queried, how it comes to pass 
that antimony and copper can give to pale gold its 
perfect colour, and so can help others, whereas they 
cannot help themselves. As also, whence it is that 
they can communicate this colour to gold, and 
not to silver or any other metal, and not to them- 
selves. 

Forasmuch as gold doth want this colour, and must 
have it as its due and property, which it hath either 
had before, and now lost it, or hath not yet attained 
to it, but must attain it for the future ; wherefore the 
gold, to satiate itself, takes in this gold-colour in order 
to its perfection, and can naturally take no more than 
it ought to have. 

There remains yet one considerable question to be 
asked, namely, forasmuch as it has been said that 
gold naturally takes in no more of a golden-colour 
than it stands in need of for itself, and that a tincture 
which must first turn the imperfect metals into silver 
(as being the body of gold), and afterwards tinge 
them into gold, must consist and proceed from gold 
and silver (for no third or strange thing can be here 
admitted), and yet the said tincture must not be 
gold or silver, but the very principle and beginning of 
gold and silver, and so be partaker of the end and per- 
fection of gold and silver, and have the sulphur of gold 
and silver in it : for that bodies of one nature (as before 
mentioned), cannot mechanically enter into each other, 
as being both of them equally hard to be melted. The 
tincture, therefore, must needs be and consist of just such 
a sulphurous nature — (namely, which is easily fusible) 
—as the sulphur of gold and silver is of, which hath 



440 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



given them their form, and as it was before it entered 
into the composition of gold and silver, at the beginn- 
ing of their being made such. And forasmuch as the 
said tincture is to tinge the other metals through and 
through not mechanically but vitally and naturally, it 
must of necessity abound with the said perfect metallic 
yellow and white tincture. Now silver and gold (accord- 
ing to what has been said) cannot mechanically 
take in more than they stand in need of themselves. 
The question therefore is, From whence such a tincture 
as this must be taken. And this question, in itself, 
may be said to include the whole challenge to the 
powers of alchemy. 

We are likewise to weigh and consider how it can 
be, that such a little body of one grain should natur- 
ally be able so to subtiliate itself, as to be able to 
pierce a body of a pound weight in all its parts ; which 
commonly is held to be impossible, because they 
suppose the metals to be mere gross bodies, and that 
one body cannot penetrate another. 

Ask Nature of what she makes gold and silver in 
the gold and silver mines, and she will answer thee, 
out of red and white arsenic ; but she will tell thee 
withal, that indeed gold and silver are made of the 
same. For the gold which is there in its vital 
place where it is wrought and made, is killed by the 
abundance of arsenic, and afterwards made alive 
again and volatilized, to bring forth other creatures, 
as vegetables and animals, and to give unto them 
their being and life. From whence we may conclude, 
that gold is not only in the earth, to be dug thence 
and made into coin and plate : for should we suppose 
this, it would follow, that an incomprehensible great 
quantity of gold must have been created in vain, and 
be of no use at all, there being vast quantities of gold 
which Jiever are, nor ever can be, dug-up. And now 



LIFE OF THE METALS 



441 



to draw a parallel between the divine part or soul 
of man, and the purged and perfected gold. 

Seeing that man, as a perfect and express Image 
of God, had all created beings, and consequently all 
living creatures in himself, and that therefore it would 
have been unnecessary to bring the outward living 
creatures outwardly to him; must it not then be 
supposed, that this was done inwardly in the centre, 
wherein Adam then stood. And that in this centre 
he gave to all creatures their proper and essential 
names, forasmuch as this could not have been done 
by him, in case the essential living ideas of the said 
creatures had not been in him, from which he gave 
forth those essential names, as water gusheth out 
from a living fountain. And may we not therefore 
with evidence conclude from hence that the 1 Garden 
of Eden ' was not only an outward place without 
man, Doth it not also clearly appear from this that 
the ' Garden of Eden ' was not only a place ' without 
man ? 1 For that when Adam by his ' Fall ' had lost 
the inward life out of the centre (which proceeds 
from the centre to the circumference), and was come 
into the circumference, his eyes were 1 opened ' so that 
now he was fain to take in his light from without 
from the outward world, because his own ' inward 
world ' was hid and shut up from him ; and now he 
saw his earthliness and bodily nakedness (which is the 
present state of all men in the world), for before he 
was ' full of light ' from the continual irradiation ' from 
the centre \ 

Pure gold is the sediment or settlement of ' light \ 
It is the child of the ' Sun and is implanted and 
perfected by him. 



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD 



THE OUTLINE OF THE CABALA, OR KABBALAH. ITS 
MYSTIC INDICATIONS. THE PURPOSE OF THE 
GREAT ARCHITECT OF THE UNIVERSE IN THE 
SENSIBLE AND SPIRITUAL WORLDS (NATURAL 
AND SUPERNATURAL), AND THE CHARACTER OF 
THEIR RECIPROCITY, AND DOUBLE-WORKING 

What is more dream-like than the transactions in the 
Apocalypse ? To ordinary comprehension, the mys- 
teries of the Cabala, and the outline (spiritual) of the 
beginning of things, suggested in the Revelation of 
Saint John, are equally unintelligible. 

It seems natural to believe, that the Ail-Powerful, 
All- Wise Deity hath, before all time (as far back 
as we can imagine), formed and governed a world of 
spiritual beings, active, conscious, having understand- 
ing and reason to conduct them, and ' passions ' to 
stimulate them. We may also conceive, that in so 
enormous a rebellion as that of Lucifer, where so many 
orders of operative spirits were drawn in, that several 
(or many, or a multitude) of these did more eminently 
transgress than others. Some, from the heights of 
arrogance and pride, against the Almighty Dispenser 
of Rewards ; and others through malice and envy, 
and some by other specious pretences, according to 
the powers and capacities they enjoyed in their several 
states of subordination, in which they were placed ; 
and therefore, at that period, when they shall be 
solemnly tried, different degrees of punishment will 
be awarded against them ; and for a larger or shorter 

442 



GENESIS OF MOSES 



443 



time, in proportion to their crimes. As confinement 
is also a reasonable intermediate punishment, until 
their general trial and sentence ; so also, according to 
their offences, it may be reasonable to believe, that the 
degrees of confinement may be greater or less, and 
they may have more or less enjoyment of life and sen- 
sations, in proportion to their crimes. That, accord- 
ingly, some may be deprived of life and sensation, and 
be entirely unconscious, until the General Judgment. 
Some may be deprived in part, and for part of the time, 
and be conscious sometimes ; and yet, when conscious, 
may be deprived of the memory of past actions, or 
any knowledge for the time to come ; whilst others 
may know both, and fear and tremble at the approach 
of their trial and judgment. 

Since the Divine Being has an infinite variety of 
purposes and occupations in which to employ, and 
infinite extensions and limitations of rewards and 
punishments to dispense to conscious free spirits, who 
may deserve rewards and punishments, and may have 
passed on and ' thrilled ', and grown into power ; so 
these entities rose into higher, and nobler, and more 
fully-informed life in the ever-springing and ever-fluent 
Creation. The innumerable items in this physical 
world, ever resigning, ever renewed, ever balanced, 
(subsiding to evil ; recovering to good) : these were 
in active motion. All this state of restless, universal 
conflict or competition ; of affirmation, and of negation, 
in different degrees, both as to duration and intense- 
ness ; at the time of the formation of the scheme of 
the ' Cosmos in the developing of the (speculative) 
Mosaic creation, was perhaps the area of the operations 
of the lapsed spirits. These had been doomed to a 
state of silence, by being deprived of their sensations, 
and had been chained down to the abysses of the 
several suns, or chao§ of planets, by the impulse 



444 THE ROSICRUCIANS 

of gravitation, or mutual attraction (gravity being, 
magically, the magnetic, sensitive, ' angelical efflu- 
vium 1 spoken of by Robertus de Fluctibus and the 
Rosicrucians). Such may have had an opportunity of 
gaining degrees and impetus back again into angelic 
life, in recovery out of the soulless densities of matter 
(that meant by the ' darkness ' allegorized by Moses) ; 
and reappearing, in the new order of things, in the 
beautiful form of new efforts at life — star-raised — 
astrologically raised — vegetables, growing plants, and 
flowers (sexed, even, in their own mysterious differ- 
ences and forms and fashions), or 1 animals, in their 
higher or lower, or pure or impure kinds. These animal 
or ' plantal souls ' come from the metamorphosed 
' spirits'-world ' (all this is perfectly possible, however 
strange and mysterious), being, in their seeds, dispersed 
not only over the surfaces of the several suns and 
planets (' if particles of light are spiritual forms '), 
but also throughout all the matter in the several stars, 
through infinite space. Those who are doomed to a 
long inactivity until a future judgment are within the 
surfaces of the several globes, and are not to ' take 
life ' during this present period, or reign of things. 
That to such as the Deity thinks proper, only a fossil, 
vegetable, or animal, brutal life was to be given, until 
the conflagration of this globe. It has been a doctrine 
advanced in the mysticism of the Gnostics, that only 
for such as our Saviour Jesus Christ had interposed 
for mercy, a state of probation was allowed. These 
are the condemned (the conquered ' Hosts of the " First 
Fall " '—that fall of the ' Angels '). This class of 
spirits by their entering human bodies (having been 
allowed sufficient machine, and adequate physical 
means), combined the synthesis of reason, memory, 

1 This agrees with the Pythagorean ideas, and with those of 
Lucretius. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF FIRE 445 



and judgment, which combination makes them ac- 
countable for their behaviour and actions here. At the 
same time others, who have not these powers, at the 
last Judgment are to be doomed according to their 
former crimes ; crimes of the nature and character of 
which poor human nature — incapable and childish as 
it is — can form no idea ; — humanity having been 
never intended for a comprehension of the super- 
natural, mighty secrets — resting alone in the hidden 
Mysteries of God ! These crimes of the lapsed 
spirits (committed in their former state), before they 
were imprisoned in these globes, are as totally un- 
imaginable by men, as crimes, and the ' wherefore 
and the ' nature ' of crimes, in the human mature 
state, are not known by children. 

Let us consider a little the nature of that mysteri- 
ous thing — in reality, the Master of the World — called 
' Fire \ The ' body ' and the ' spirit ' are alike trace- 
able into it. The human scale or register of fire is 
nothing ; because our instruments — thermometers, 
pyrometers, and so forth — fail at a given point. They 
cannot inform us of the intensities of heat or of cold 
(instant destruction) which shoot upward, or down- 
ward, from either end, baffling mortal computation 
or idea, flying through hundreds of degrees by leaps, 
impossible of recognition by man. Thus man knows 
nothing of Fire, except the ordinary comfortable little 
minimum of fire — which, answering his purposes in 
certain indispensable respects, when risen into magni- 
tude, destroys him as his master in a moment, and 
all his belongings — nay, the whole world, and its 
belongings, and everything conceivable. Fire, in 
fact, devours every cosmic possibility. 

Many particles of light lose their motion when they 
enter into the pores of the several bodies around us, 
and many remain and adhere to the bodies they 



446 



THE ROSICRVCIANS 



enter ; so that, we apprehend, vegetables consist, in 
great part, of these particles, which makes them so 
inflammable ; and that the pabulum of our material fire 
is nothing more than the imprisoned rays or particles 
of light, when united to salts, and other particles of 
body ; and that the strong heat and motion of fire, 
when kindled, is nothing more than the struggle of 
the imprisoned or fettered rays to break from the salts 
and aqueous particles they are united with ; and, when 
that motion becomes exceeding quick, Fire then 
glows, and is thrown off in lucid rays. Where the 
struggle is strongest, as in metals, sulphurs, and con- 
solidated impenetrability, the fire and flame is intense, 
as requiring a stronger motion to break up the atoms 
into brightness, and to liberate that ' flower \ glory, 
or crown of heat, which we call flame — flame and light, 
nature's last achievement and brandishing victory. 
Out of the solidest matters for burning, comes the 
fiercest and the most abundant Fire ; until the masses 
of fiery molecules burst (being turned inside-out) 
into the blaze of the brightest of Light ! The whole 
late mass is then passed into the ( unknown \ leaving 
the ruin only as ashes, with the whole power out. 

An opinion was put forward in the middle ages 
that our souls were all originally in the first Adam ; 
and that both our spirits and bodies are all come 
from him ; and, by throwing off one tegument or skin 
after another, at each conception, we at last appear in 
the world in the condition we are now in. But this 
seems to be too much of a piece with the materialists, 
who may believe our souls, like matter in their con- 
ception, divisible infinitely ; for this would confirm 
their hypothesis, that our souls are material, and 
infinitely divisible ; and that there are souls within 
souls, looking backwards as far as thought can 
reach j for myriads of millions are included in the 



MYSTERIES OF THE CABALA 447 



vehicle of one, since so many souls or animalcules 
are thrown off at each act of copulation, as we now 
observe by microscopes, when in the least drop of the 
semen there are such surprising numbers seen. This 
would also confirm their opinion, who imagine that 
souls take up no room or place in space, by being 
infinitely small ; and may thus, in a manner, be con- 
ceived not to be anywhere. Whereas, from the 
powers we observe in ourselves, and other spiritual 
beings, we must take up room, and be extended in 
space, since we act in a limited part of it. It is imposs- 
ible that souls, in the spiritual sense, can be born into 
this world out of so much waste. 

In the cabalistic, which is, therefore, the astrological 
view, the sun in every vortex is the centre and lowest 
part ; the ascent is from the sun, the descent to it. 
A vortex may be divided into four concentric orbs or 
worlds (unequal), and termed the utmost, or highest, 
Aziluth ; the next, Briah ; the third, Jetzirah ; the 
lowest, or inmost, Asiah (or Asia). The first, Aziluth 
(' absorbed in divine contemplations extends from 
the margin of the vortex to Saturn ; the second, 
Briah (social or political), from Saturn to Mars ; the 
third, Jetzirah (leonine and belluine), from Mars to 
Mercury ; the fourth, Asia (mechanical), from Mer- 
cury to the frigescent Sun. A sia, superior, from Mercury 
to the atmosphere of the now frigid star. Asia, 
inferior, the atmosphere and body of the frigid star 
itself. Hence, perhaps, Saturn and Jupiter were 
worshipped by the sons of darkness, corrupting old 
traditions at the will of their Prince, the Old Serpent 
(as the causer of all visible things), and as presiding 
over counsel and benignity, as apparent, and as to 
work in a world which is half-shadow. Mars and Venus 
over the irascible and concupiscible. Mercury over 
ingenuity and human production, or 1 making \ 



448 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



technical and mechanical. These are all astrological 
meanings and interpretations. All souls, even Azi- 
luthic were clothed with corporeal vehicles, they being 
the means of sensation and commerce, the highest grati- 
fications of animal, or perhaps of all created natures. 
The deeper immersed these entities are in the vortex, 
that is in matter (or ' darkness the more gross 
the vehicle ; and yet supplying the most abundant 
means — contributing the most of power — to the Fire, 
or the Light, because all comprehensible Fire and 
Light is material. There is a revolution of human 
souls through all the four worlds (the Four Elements, 
or the four corners of the universe of the Rosicrucians, 
Aziluth, etc.), either by divine fate, or their own fault. 
The periods are unequal, especially the Aziluthic and 
Briathic. The legitimate revolution of angelic souls 
is no lower than Asia, superior. Their vehicles are 
richer in the exquisite sensual gratifications than the 
human ; but their souls are less gifted with the possi- 
bility of the divine aspiration than the human. This 
mystery lies at the very base of the cabalistic pro- 
fundities, which form the first step upon which, in 
mounting upwards out of man's ordinary nature, 
the true Rosicrucians (humblest, and yet haughtiest, 
of the children of men) place their feet. Hence the 
above-referred-to • darkened ' angels — a certain num- 
ber, at least, of them, fell first by breaking-forth into 
1 Jetzirah \ without Divine Leave, out of that region 
cabalistically denominated ' Briah in which, and in 
' Aziluth ', innocence reigned universally. And there 
the augmented delights and vigour of their vehicles, 
through the greater heat and increased magnificent 
fulgency of the sun, allured them, and strengthened 
them, to those inordinate deeds (impossible to be com- 
prehended by man), by the divine magic of those 
regions, and to the traitorous embassy of that proud 



THE ' REP H AIM ' 



449 



princely genius, the 1 Rebel Leader ' amongst the prin- 
cipal Archangels, known afterwards by many names, 
but herein by that of Ophioneus, or Lucifer, ' Bringer 
of Light or ' Morning Star ' (Lux-fero) — which 
brought to them the name of Rephaim, or giants * 
and to human souls the lapse out of ' Briah 1 , by join- 
ing the rebel angels. This is the cabalistic, theos- 
ophical or mystical story of the \ First Fall ' — or that of 
the ' Angels Souls which degenerate into the vivi- 
fied region, cabalistically called ' Asia not through 
their own fault, but by divine fate, return safe into 
' Aziluth neither broken by adversity, nor softened 
by pleasures, aided in all states, by Grace Divine. This 
is the meaning of the ' Elect or the chosen of God. 

In ' Aziluth 1 the souls of men and angels, wholly 
intent on the adoration of the Supreme Master, and 
occupied in sublime wonderings, neglect and scarcely 
perceive the life of the natural vehicle — 'that of wants \ 
From the celestially igneous and vivacious, and illum- 
inated character of this life, and of the magic aura, or 
matter of this supernatural region, it is named caelum 
empyrcBitm. This was Adam's state before Eve was 
created, and before the ' sexes ' became possible, or the 
distinctions of ' sex ' sprang into existence. For, whereas 
Adam owed his birth to God, who made him out of 
matter, Eve owed her birth to Adam, who produced 
her out of ' ruined ' matter. Thus we see the necess- 
ity of the Saviour, ' born of Woman through the 
pardon, under penalties, which in the continual gener- 
ations absolve the sin — the seed of the Woman 
bruising ' (crushing) the Serpent's Head. Eve was 
the ' Feminized Adam and was the ' First in the 
Fall \ misinterpreting the Devil as a God : but out of 
this temptation, and as a result of its success, arises the 
' possibility of Man ' — the great stumbling-block to 
all the disbelievers, who are unable to rise into any 

G G 



450 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



supernatural idea. In ' Briah 9 — or the region in 
which descent was furthered, the Azihtthic ardour 
being abated, the view became turned to the outward 
world, or the world of physical construction, and to the 
life, and sensations, and sustainment of the vehicle. 
This became the state after the formation of Eve. Then 
arose the transaction between God and the Soul of 
the Messiah concerning his * Passion *, and the ' Re- 
demption of the World \ The soul of the Messiah 
profited so much in the cabalistic ' Aziluth \ and 
adhered to the eternal Logos with so strict a love, 
that, at length, they were united into one ■ Person ' 
(Partzuph) — (this is the mystic doctrine of the Gnostics) 
— with the highest azihtthic, or rather hyperaziluthic 
union, as Soul and Body, into one Individuality, thence 
rightly called the Son of God, name or nature ineffable. 
This Divine Messiah is constituted by God the Father, 
Ruler of all Souls, human and angelical, King of Kings, 
and Lord of Lords. Upon his undertaking to become 
the Saviour of the Lost World — thence arose his union 
with the divine Logos, which was completed and 
declared. {John xvii. 5 ; Heb. i. 6 ; Philippians ii. 
6-8 ; Ps. lxxii. 5, according to the Septuagint.) Its 
mystical primaeval duration until the sun of this vortex 
(the solar system) cooled into a planet (rather comet), 
through the rebel Rephaim overturning all order and 
beauty ; and therefore deprived of the solar light and 
heat, the principle of their magic power and operations, 
and before the moon became frigid, and was struck 
off from the bulk of the earth, and set rolling, circum- 
volving, in its new magic, feminine light — maker of 
the sensitives — as a satellite to our world. cThe chaotic 
comet being formed into a habitable earth through 
the force of gravitation, and, physically, in the exert- 
ion of the powers centripetal and centrifugal, solidify- 
ing it into a globe, the lapsed human souls — having 



A REMARKABLE BOOK 



451 



drank of the ' river of Lethe ' to make this new 
state of trial and purification (here we encounter the 
Buddhistic system) more attainable and effectual, 
sank into terrestrial bodies. All this, and the new 
operations arising in place of that divine magic so 
greatly abused by them in their former state, and in 
their cabalistical state, called ' Jetzirah ' — Gen. hi. 

The Jetzirathic Rephaimof the Cabala esteemed them- 
selves Elohim (Gods) in their supernaturally drunken 
and mad frolics, as being experimentally skilled in all 
sorts of contrivances, good and evil, through the use 
and abuse of magic. And so the Serpent persuaded 
Eve it would be with her. Whence the name of 
Jetzirah, the Cabalistic term for this development, 
from the Chaldaic, or foundation — Hebrew ' jatzar \ 
to form ■ good and evil ' magically, not mechani- 
cally. 

Catachismus, Cabalisticus, Mercavceus Sephirothicus. 
Refer to a very valuable old Book, published in London, 
in the possession of the authors of this present work 
and entitled ■ A Miscellaneous Metaphysical Essay y 
or, An Hypothesis concerning the Formation and Gener- 
ation of Spiritual and Material Beings, with Their 
Several Characteristics and Properties, and how jar the 
several surrounding Beings partake of either property. 
To which is added Some Thoughts upon Creation in 
General, upon Pre- existence, the Cabalistic Account of 
the Mosaic Creation, the Formation of Adam, and 
Fall of Mankind; and upon the Nature of Noah's 
Deluge. As also upon the Dormant State of the Soul, 
from the Creation to our Birth, and from our Death 
to the Resurrection. The whole considered upon the 
Principles of Reason, and from the Tenor of the 
Revelations in the Holy Scriptures. By an Impartial 
Inquirer after Truth. — London/ (No name or date.) 

It is impossible to tell now who was the author of 



452 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



this remarkable work. It was, in fact, an explanator} 
treatise on the Cabala. 

We have, as far as allowable, given the Rosicrucian 
interpretation thereof. The whole range of these 
subjects is pre-eminently mysterious and Phallic. 
For Phallicism seems to rest as the basis of everything, 
as it proffers undoubtedly as the foundation and the 
meaning of all the mythologies. It follows from this, 
that this human state must be a supernatural (natural) 
place, of inquietude, and of penitential suffering ; and 
that this place of trial — the world — is only a state of 
purgation and of trouble, introductory to some other 
— and it is to be hoped — better state. ' The whole 
Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, 
until now.' — St. Paul. 

The following suggestions are from Scripture : 
1 And those " members of the body " which we think 
to be " less honourable ", upon them we bestow " more 
abundant honour"! — I Cor. xii. 23. 

' But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world 
to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak 
things of the world to confound the things which are 
mighty ; and base things of the world, and things 
which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things 
which are not, to bring to nought things that are! — 
1 Cor. i. 27 and 28. 

' For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the 
wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of 
the prudent.' — 1 Cor. i. 19. 

' He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second 
death.' — Rev. ii. 11. 

' To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the 
hidden manna, and will give him a white stone' 
(the ' Philosophers' Stone ? ') ' and in the stone a new 
name written, which no man knoweth saving he that 
receiveth it.' — Rev. ii. 17. 



E VOL VEM ENT INTO SPIRITUALITY 



453 



' And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works 
unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.' 
— Rev. ii. 26. 

' And I will give him the Morning Star.' — Rev. ii. 
28. 

1 And I will write upon him my New Name.' — Rev. 
iii. 12. 

' He that overcometh shall inherit all things ; and 
I will be his God, and he shall be my son.' — Rev. xxi. 

7- 

' We discover that, not only is the " Garden of 
Eden " an allegory in itself, but the whole structure 
of the Bible is an allegory, beginning with Creation, 
(as described by Moses), and ending with Christ's 
spiritual, or clairvoyant, appearance to St. John in 
the Revelation! 

The whole is, however, indicative of pure spiritual 
life. 



CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH, AND LAST 



CABALISTIC PROFUNDITIES 

It is an assertion of the occult philosophers that 
the meaning and purpose of life is altogether mis- 
taken : — necessarily — that is, in the 1 Necessity of 
Things ' — mistaken. That, inasmuch as he lives, man 
is incapacitated for pronouncing upon the nature of 
his life ; being it — itself. He being as a • Liver ' — 
' It '— (i.e. 1 Life ' Itself '). Philosophy and com- 
mon sense take it for granted that life needs conscious- 
ness, or some form in which the consciousness may 
be, in order that the liver may ' live \ Abstract 
philosophy asserts that the liver (living), unlives 
(in the true sense), for the very purpose of living. In 
other words, it is concluded that, as man is the ' thing 
seen the individual cannot ever go out of himself, 
' to see himself ' ; that the 1 judged at the bar ' can- 
not cease his character to become another character, 
and thus 1 change places ' with his judge, and thus 
become the judge on the bench, going out of ' him- 
self to become ' something other ' than himself, 
and to judge of what he is, himself. Now this, obvi- 
ously, cannot be in common-sense, or in any sense. 
Thus, this philosophy is applied in the hermetic 
sense. The alchemists contended that it is possible 
(by art) to obtain out of the boundless, holy, unap- 
propriated eternal Youth of Nature, a wherewithal, 
by means of which to ' wreak ' — to use a strange 
word. Thus there could be miraculous renewal, even 
out of the powers of nature. No one knows the pur- 

454 



METAPHYSICAL DISQUISITIONS 455 



poses of God, nor can any one limit the powers of 
God. 

' Angelicarum animarum revolutionem, quanquam 
ad terrestrem regionem proprie, dictam haud per- 
tingit, ad superiorem tamen partem mundi Asiathici 
et atmosphoeram extendi. Nec tamen nisi parcius 
et compendiosius hisce de rebus egimus in Cabbala 
Philosophica ; in Geneseos, Cap. 2 & 3. 

Animas, quag non sua quidem culpa, laborant, sed 
Divino quodam Fato, in mundum Asiathicum dela- 
buntur. Divina quadam vi munitas ac agitatas tuto 
certoque in mundum Aziluthicum reverti. 

Animam Messice in mundo Aziluthico tan turn 
profecisse et tarn arcto amore ac unione cum Divino 
Intellectu, sive aeterno Logo coaluisse ut tandem 
summo plane gradu Aziluthico vel potius Hyper a- 
ziluthico, et si scholastici loqui liceat Hypostatico, 
cum eo unitus esset, adeo ut Anima Messice et Divinus 
Logos unafieret ^"IS, i.e. unapersona (ut anima et 
corpus unus Homo) quae recte appellanda esset Filius 
Dei. 

Electrum vero in medio Ignis est Elementum 
Divinum cadestis vortices materiae inclusum et inter- 
spersum/ 



1 Upward of the " server " or of the heavenly- 
assisted influences. ' Sphara Litera (M) signata, repre- 
sentat Mundum Briathicum, ubi observanda. 



(Sephirolh) 

1. Kether . 

2. Cbochmah 

3. Binah . 

4. Daath . 

5. Chesed . 

6. Gebhurab 



(Nomina) 



(Angeli.) 
Jehuel . 
Raphael . 
Cherubiel 
Schemuel. 
Zadkiel . 
Tarschisch 



(Chori Angelorum) 
. Seraphim. 
. Ophanim. 
. Cherubim. 

• Schinanim. 
. Tarschischim. 



456 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



(Sephiroth) 

7. Tiphereth 

8. Xezach . 

9. Hod 

10. Jcsod 

11. Malchuth 



(Nomina) 

rr£*n 
{ ntfiT - 



id 



(Angeli) 
Chasmal : alii 
(Metatron) 
(Usiel J* 
Chasmel 
(Zephaniah :V 
(alii Jehuel j 

Michael . . 

Finis 



(Chori Angelorum) 
Chaschmalin. 

Malachim. 
Bene Elohim. 
Ischim. 

Arelim. 



' Soli deo gloria per Christum. ' 

' Kabbala Denudata : seu doctrina Hebrceroum 
Trans cendenialis et Metaphysica atque Theologia scrip- 
turn Omnibus Philologis, Philosophic, Theologis omnium 
religionum, atqu: Philo-Chymicis. Sulzbaci, Typis 
Abrahami Lichtenthalbri — 1677/ 



Extracts from the Cabala 
The ' Second Ruin 

In which Second Ruin the origin of the strangely 
great, strangely mysterious religion of the first 
Buddhism, or first Buddhistic (or more properly 
Bhuddhistic) system is to be found. 

' When the old primaeval world was ruined/ 

' mn chavvah. R. Moscheh inquit, sic appellari 
Malchuth, quia est vere est Mater omnis viventis, 
et uxor Adami primi sub mysterio no quod refert 
numerum DIR. Pardes. Tr. } 23, c. 8. 

' nsnn Thalamus, vel cesium nuptiale, sub quo sponsus 
et sponsa consecrantur. Kabbalistae totum systema 
Aziluthicum in Chuppah praefigurant. Kether enim 
est Tectum. Chocmah Parietes ; Binah ostium ; 
Chesed, Gebburah, Nezach et Hod quasi brachia in 



THE JEWISH CABALA 



457 



introitu Thalami constituta ; Tiphereth et Malchuth 
sponsus et sponsa intra Thalamum per Jesod, qui 
est Paranymphus. Paries. Tr., 23, c. 8. Kabbala 
Denudata, p. 338/ 

Morum trium est terra, de qua ibidem ; sicut trium 
nominum receptaculum est Adonai, a quo omnium 
judioiorum fit executio. Hinc intelligitur mysticum 
illud Genes, 42, vers. 33. Vir y^n '•riN Dominus 
terrae. Conf. Jehosch., 3, vers. 11. 

' Area, est Malchuth : unde in earn ingressus 
dicitur Noach, i.e. Jesod. Gen., 6, 9, Pard. 

' Duodecim ergo signacula Tetragrammati et 4 
vexilla eorum sunt haec : Vexillum primum ; vexillum 
secundum • vexillum tertium ; vexillum quartum. 

' Duodecim autem Tribus in haec vexilla distri- 
buuntur. Vexillum 1. Juhudah, Jissaschar, Sebulon. 
Vexillum 2. Reuben, Schimeon, Gad. Vexillum 3. 
Ephraim, Menanche, Binjamin. Vexillum 4. Dan, 
Asser, Napthali. 

* Duodecim vero menses cum 12. Signis et limiti- 
bus Zodiaci in 4 Quadrantibus anni ita locantur. 

f T7 Incola inhabitans. Omnium interpretum 
consensu vocatur Malchuth. Et in Schaare Zedek 
additur ratio, quod sit mn hospitium Tetragrammati 
Tiphereth, vel quod habitet in tonos sicut scriptum 
est : Lev., 16, 16, qui commoratur cum eis in medio 
immunditiarum eorum. R. Moscheh autem dicit, 
T? esse nomen Lapidis pretiosi ; item spinarum et 
tribulorum. Atqui sit et haec mensura se habet, 
quippe a qua provenit bonum et malum Dicetque 
quod a n venit vox Dm meridies. Ipse autem R. 
Moscheh hanc vocent applicat ad Binah, in Malchuth 
ergo illius respectu erit. Pard. Tr., 23, c. 4/ Kabbala 
Denudata. Ed. 1677. Salzbuch. 

' Cerva amorum. Prov., 5, 19. Ita vocatur Mal- 
chuth potissimum ob mysterium novilunii quando 



438 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



sc. ista in altu porrigit Cornua, quae sint Cornua. Hod 
gloriosa in ipsa apparentia quando nova sit h. m. 
^ : aliquando tamen cornu unum altius est altero 
h. m. Qj : sit tradit R. Schimeon ben Jochai in Raja 
Mehimna, hac adjecta ratione : Haec variare secun- 
dum diversitatem renovationis. Vel enim aequalis 
sit ab utroque loco : et tunc cornua equalem habent 
altitudinem. Si vero a parte plus accipit, ita ut haec 
sinistrae praevaleat, tunc cornu unum elevatius est 
altero : atque tunc vocatur cerva amorum y ob mys- 
terium amoris et Chesed seu benignitatis in ipsa prae- 
valentis. Si autem sinistrum prae valet latus, vocatur 
"TOn : rbti cerva nigricans seu diluculi caliginosi. 
Ps., 22, i, nim. ob nigredinem et anxietatem cui sub- 
ject a est in exilic' 

' Lurking principles in the physiology of the 
human construction/ Extracted from Cabala : "rbun 
Rosa. Est Schechinah, juxta Cant., 2, 1. Ratio 
datur in Sohar Sect. JEmor, quod sicut Rosa crescit 
ad aquas, et emittit odorem bonum, sic Malchuth hoc 
gaudeat nomine, cum influxum affugit a Binah, quae 
bonum elevat odorem. Item : quod tunc sic vocetur, 
cum copulari desiderat cum Rege : cum vero Eidem 
jam adhaeret per oscula, nominantur m^lD Crinor- 
rhodon ; juxta Cant. 5, 13. Pardes Tractat., 2, 3, 
c. 8. Kabbala Deniidata. Ed. 1677. Salzburg. 
P. 333- 

' Sed a muris versus exteriora sunt turmae malignae 
ad latus sinistrum, non quidem supra, sed infra tan- 
tum. Et caput omnium cater varum malarum est 
Samael : et illae omnes sunt autores jurgiorum et 
odii, et non pertinent ad habitatores atrii Regii ; sed 
extra degunt extra tertium aggerem et extra muros. 
qui circum castra. Et hue pertinet illud Num., 5, 2, 
de exclusione Leprosorum, fluentium ; et aliorum 
immundorum ; quae sunt tres catervae. Isti dicuntur 



SPECULATIVE CONSIDERATIONS 459 

inquinare 1. c. attendunt enim, quam accuratissime 
sicubi peccatis se polluant homines, atque turn in 
supernis eos accusant. Atque sic dicitur Psal., 104, 
4. Faciens angelos suos spiritus, ministros suos 
ignem flagrantem. Hinc Aqua ad El, Ignis ad Elohim, 
Aer ad Tetragrammaton, et Terra ad Adonai refertur. 
Ordinem reperies Gene., 1, 2, ubi inter tenebras (qui- 
bus Ignis aequipollet) et aquas, ferri dicitur spiritus, 
ut inter Elohim et El est Tetragrammaton. Recep- 
taculum autem quod a 11 veniat vox nm meridies. 
Ipse autem R. Moscheh hanc vocent applicat ad Binah, 
in Malchuth ergo illius respectu erit. Pard. Tr. } 23, 
c. 4. Kabbala Denudata. Ed. 1677. Salzbuch. 

' Cerva amorum, Prov. } 5, 19. Ita vocatur Mal- 
chuth potissimum ob mysterium novilunii quando 
sc. ista in altu porrigit Cornua, quae sint Cornua Hod 
gloriosa in ipsa apparentia quando nova sit h. m. ^ : 
aliquando tamen cornu unum altius est altero h. m. 
Q) : Sit tradit R. Schimeon ben Jochai in Raja 
Mehimna, hac adjecta ratione : Haec variare secundum 
diversitatem renovationis. Vel enim aequalem accipit 
influxum a dextra et a sinistra, et renovatio aequalis 
sit ab utroque loco : et tunc cornua equalem habent 
altitudinem. Si vero a parte dextra plus accipit, ita 
ut haec sinistra^ praevaleat, tunc cornu unum elevatius 
est altero ; atque tunc vocatur cerva atnorutn, ob 
mysterium amoris et Chesed seu benignitatis in ipsa 
praevalentis. Si autem sinistrum prae valet latus, 
vocatur in^n : rba : cerva nigricans seu diluculi caligin- 
osi. — Ps., 22, 1, nim. ob nigredinem et anxietatem 
cui subject a est in exilio. , 

Pairing (human) is synthesis — it is the union of 
1 Half-Sex \ Man (so assumed in this abstract sense), 
and ' Half-Sex Woman (so assumed, also, in this 
abstract sense). The union of these f Two ' half- 
sexes is the establishment of a i Whole ' Sex— 



460 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



Hermaphrodite : (Hermes- Aphrodite. Venus-Mercury). 
The mechanical definition of the exercise of Sox 
is power of blissful protrusion ; human organic- 
advance ; willed, conscious magnetism (for an 
end) : — with climax of dissolution and destruction 
(in the end).— Perishing as in the ' flower ' of this 
1 stalk \ Thus Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus — 
thus the mystic anatomists, like Fludd and Van 
Helmont. Thus, the Mythologists say that the orders 
are to be taken as identical, although, in fact, they 
are directly contradictory. It is these things, which 
are set against each other, which constitute the stu- 
pendous and irresistible natural temptation (obtained 
out of shame or out of denial, and disgrace), of all this 
enchanted side of life. 

' "TOD Umbilicus. Est schechinah, quatenus adhuc 
occulta ; Corpus enim est Tiphereth, et venter Mal- 
chuth de parte Binah ; sub mysterio NH. Sed Tibbur 
est notio Jod, quatenus est in ventre et in Tiphereth. 
Et hoc est punctum illud, quo fundamentum habet 
mundus, quod vocant Tibbur seu medium terrae ; 
nempe punctum Zijon. Et forte Tibbur est Jesod. 
Pard. Tr. } 23, c. 9. DrrpiBn Ligaturae illarum.' (Kab- 
balah) 

There is nothing in the lower and sensible world, 
that is not produced, and hath its image, in the superior 
world. Since the form of the body, as well as the 
soul, is made after the image of the Heavenly Man, 
a figure of the forthcoming body which is to clothe 
the newly descending soul is sent down from the 
celestial regions to hover over the couch of the hus- 
band and wife when they copulate, in order that the 
conception may be formed according to this model. 
We have before declared in our chapter on the mystic 
anatomy, enlarged upon by Cornelius Agrippa, that 
the human ' act ' by which the power of perpetuation 



TRADITIONAL MYSTERIES 



46] 



has bee., placed in the exercise by man, and has been 
elevated into the irresistible natural temptation, is 
rightly a solemnity or magic endowment, or celebrat- 
ion to which all nature not assents simply, but con- 
curs, as the master-key, however blindly or ignorantly, 
or brutally often practised. The Sohar, hi. 104, a, 
b, declares that ' At connubial intercourse on earth, 
the Holy One (blessed be he) sends a human form 
which bears the impress of the divine stamp. This 
form is present at intercourse, and, if we were per- 
mitted to see it, we should perceive over our heads 
an image resembling a human face. And it is in this 
image that we are formed. As long as this image is 
not sent by God, and does not descend and hover over 
our heads, there can be no conception ; for it is 
written ' And God created man in his own image ' 
(Gen. i. 27). This image receives us when we enter 
the world ; it develops itself with us when we grow ; 
and accompanies us when we depart this life, as it is 
written : ' Surely man walked in an image \ 

The followers of this secret doctrine of the Kabbalah 
claim for it a pre- Adamite existence. It is also called 
the secret Wisdom, because it was only handed down 
by tradition through the initiated, and its whole 
story indicated in the Hebrew Scriptures by signs 
which are hidden and unintelligible to those who 
have not been instructed in its mysteries. ' All human 
countenances are divisible into the four primordial 
types of faces which appeared at the mysterious 
chariot-throne in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel ; 
viz. the face of man, of the lion, the ox, and the eagle. 
Our faces resemble these more or less according 
to the rank which our souls occupy in the intellectual 
or moral dominion. Physiognomy does not consist 
in the external lineaments, but in the features which 
are mysteriously drawn in us/ 



462 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



The following are fragments from the Cabala : 

' Ad Kether, Mundus Intelligentiae, Sphaera prima, 
que dat facultatem omnibus stellis et circulis. 

' Ad Chochmah, sphaera motus diurni. 

' Ad Binah, sphaera octava stellarum fixarum, et 
duodecim signorum caelestium, cum quibus com- 
binantur duodecim menses. 

' Ad Gedulah — Saturnus. 

' Ad Gebhurah — Jupiter. 

' Ad Tiphereth— Mars. 

' Ad Nezach— Sol. 

' Ad Hod— Venus. 

1 Ad Jesod — Mercurius. 

' Ad Malchuth — et in medio locatur Terra. 

' Figura T. representat Hortum-Eden, ej usque sep- 
tem mansiones : ubi in circuitu est murus Paradisiacus 
et sequuntur septem palatia ; in medio autem arbor 
Vitae. 

* Ut legitur Deuter. 30, 15. " Vide, exhibui cor- 
am te vitam et bonum, mortem et malum etc., 
added locum Proverb, 31, 11, 12. Beatus, qui intelligit 
insigne hoc mysterium, quia ex eo potest intelligere 
mysterium albedinis et Lunae a principio ad finem ' 
(pre-eminently indicative of the mj'steries of the 
Rosicrucians). * Hinc etiam Lepra continetur sub 
mysterio Labani Aramaei. Qui hoc intelligit, etiam 
capiet mysterium Leprae, quae signum est, quod clausus 

sit mundus dilectionem unde Targumice Lepra dicitur/ 
* * * * * 

' These are sexual notions — in fact as such must be 
everywhere * — ' Et Malchuth, quando locata et alii- 
gata est inter Jesod et Binah etiam vocatur Fcedus. 
Et hoc est mysterium nynsn Denudiationis : quia 
circumcisio refertur ad Jesod et denudatio ad Mal- 
chuth. Et propteria dicitur : Qui circumcisus est, 
et non denudatus, idem est, ac si circumcisus non esset ; 



CONCLUSION 



4^3 



quia fodicat portam ingressus, quae est Malchuth, et 
Ista est denudatio. 

* Appetitus bonus et prava concupiscentia. Vid. 
Sohar, Sect. Lechlecha, 57, 227 ; Vajera, 68, c. 269 ; 
Vajischlach, 95, c. 379 ; Toledoth, 82, c. 325 ; Vajis- 
chlach, 101, c. 406 ; Vajescheb, 106, c. 424 ; Mikkez, 
in, c. 445 sqq. y etc., etc, Also Kabbala Denudata. 
Ed. 1677. Salzburg. 

' Ignis Fire. Cum in viri appellatione, id est 
in reperiatur, i, quasi dicatur i w$ Ignis Joddatus, 
id est masculinus. Si auteni componantur ambo, 
inde fit rrtM* Ignis Dominio.' Et unus quidem Ignis, 
remoto omni dubio, est ad dextram; estque Ignis 
albus ; Alter autem est ad sinistram ; Ignis nemper 
ruber : quae apparent ex rr, ubi Jod dextrum, He, 
sinistrum designat. Pardes Rimmonim Trad., 23, c. 
1, h, t, Videantur plura de Uxore in Sohar, Part 
i, Sect. Breschith, fol. 39. Col. 154, 155. 

1 Cum purum non dicatur, nisi respectu prioris 
impuritatis. Fundamentum ergo sanctitatis est in 
Chesed, supra qua Chochmah ; cui nomen sancti 
tribuitur ; et hinc per dextram sanctitas venit super 
omnia. Sed fundamentum puritatis est in Gebhura; 
quia igne Gebhurae omnia dealbatur/ Ligatures 
illarum, Trabeationes, Exod., 27, 10, 11, etc. 

' In Tikkunim hoc nomen applicatur ad Hezach 
et Hod ; vel quod se invicem colligant, ut fiant unum 
in copula : vel a fulciendo, quod sint Trabeationes 
Domus, et Domus firmetur super eas, quatenus. Sunt 
Jachin et Boas. Vel quatenus sunt in classe Tiphereth 
et MaJchuth, qui inter ambas istas uniuntur. Pardes 
I, c' 

* $ * * $ 

' The exercise of the mysteries/ — 

* ]" Vinum. Haec vox absolute posit a refertur 
ad Gebhurah. Sed si album intelligitur inclinare 



464 



THE ROSICRUCIANS 



censeatur ad Chesed, cum rubrum sit vis Gebhurae. 
Dicitur autem bonum, quando miscetur aquis ; sub- 
intelligendo aquas Chesed, unde bonum provenit, ut 
dictum sub Eccl., 7, 12 ; Jeches., 10, 20 ; Pard. 

Tr., 23, c. 10. Vid. Soh., Sect. Noach, 54, c. 216 ; 
Lechlecha, 61, c. 244 ; et Toledoth, 81, c. 321 ; Vajikra y 
5, c. 19 ; Schemini, 17, c. 67 • Mmor, 46, c. 182 ; Fo/., 
48, 192 ; Pinchas, 114, c. 454 ; Debharim, 123, c. 
491/ Cabala Denudata. Salzbach edn., 1677. 

' )1^D, quasi clausura,(et Leprosus "UDIE quasi clausus, 
sive quis Leprosus sit simpliciter (primo aspectu, ut 
nulla inclusione opus est) sive mundari queat ; quod 
est mysterium magnum. Lepra enim venit ob linguam 
malum ; quae omnia clara sunt ; omni enim prove- 
niunt e scaturigine serpentis antiqui, qui causa est, 
ut claudantur port as Rachamim. Ille autem qui 
intelligit mysteria haec magna, de comestione Adami 
ab arbore cognitionis tempore prasputii, etiam intelli- 
get, quare vocetur Arbor cognitionis ; et quare vocetur 
Boni et Mali. Kabbala Denudata, p, 495. (Edn. 
1677.) 



THE END 



W. & J. .\1ackay & Co., Ltd., Chatham, 



Sac&rdote ck C&r&re 

~Vierir rappresentato quzrto ai atto di correre con la face accesa vi una mano,eneU 
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Tileusicitta dell Attica, era loro costume d 'and 'or correndo coine riferirce Strabone Svn= 
bolo del corse uelocissimo del Sole, e del sua calore.denotaio per la/ace accesa / cfieje.co^ 
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a&ieme colpauimento ancbra la jaarica. 



No. 3 



Abraxas 




GNOSTIC GEMS. 

Talismans, Magical Charms, and Invocations. (Strictly " Rosicrucian.") 
This Plate is illustrative of the Mysteries of the Gnostics. 
" Abraxas," or the Chief Deity in his Manifestations. 



No. 



THE ROUND TABLE OF KING ARTHUR. 

From the Original, preserved in the Court- House of the Castle at Winchester. 
" Sangreale"- or " Holy Grail." 
Lunations. 



13 .Lunations. 
2 - " Sun — Moon." 

26 Knights. 



Royal Seat. 

Sun, 
' Phallos.' 




12 (Twin)- Knights. 

(t Place, each 
Knight ; for 
'.' Mystic Luna- 
tion.") 

1 each, 24 

1 Knight, 2 Places. 

Total, 26 

These are the 
Mystic Guards of 
the Holy — the 

" Sangreale," 
or 

Holy Graal, 
or 
Graei.. 



Natural — Supernatural. 

Mysterious _|zf~T Tau. 

• Tradition, that Judas Iscariot left the Table at the words of the Saviour— "What thou doest. 
do quickly !'* and had no portion in the Last Rite. (Refer below.) 



A. 

r. 

B. 

11. 

D. 
IV. 

E. 

V. 
F. 
VI. 



Saint Matthew. 
Saint James. 
Saint Simon. 
Saint Peter. 

Saint James (of Alpheus). 
Saint Bartholomew. 



G. 
VII. 
H. 
VIII. 
I. 

IX. 

k 

K. 
XI. 
L. 
XII. 



Saint Philip. 
Saint Libocus. 
Saint Andrew. 
Saint Thomas. 
Vacant. 



Saint John. 

" After tte sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, ' That thou doest, do quickly !' 
.. w J w .. m ? n »* *■ pble knew for what intent He spake this unto him. 
ne (Judas) then having received the sop, went immediately out. And it was Night. 

S. John, Chap, xiii., vers. 27, 28, 30 



PLAN OF THE BASILICA, ST PETER'S in the "Vaticano." 




i. Dttomo— " Pom " (Central Sacred Point). 



6. 



TEMPLE OF KEYLAS, or PARADISE. 

(Ellora, in the East Indies.) 



or 
o 

3 a 

3 □ 
3 □ 

□ a 
P | o 



T3 — □ — U U 



LJ U 



TJ — □ — □ — U U U — U U 



Q □ □□□□□□□ 



pi d 




1 □ 
□ 
□ 

a 

□ 

5 □ 

□ 
□ 
a 
o 





IIWlHillHI 


a*- jlllillllllllill 








~h ri 






1 





c 
c 
c 

c 
c 
c 
c 
c 
c 
c 
c 
c 



f □ 



n 




FtotfineJctdft 



THE INSUlLATjETD TUMFliTE K1CSXAS ,©TR T > AJSAII>a§E , 

mtefJZfom Jlfcu/i&un 
A. Linga-Yoni (combined). 
This Plate (with the previous) illustrate the parallel between 
Heathen and Christian architectural forms. 
(IV. B. — The period of the construction of the above Temple transcends history. ) 



No. 7. 




No, 8. 



ASTRONOMICAL AND ASTROLOGICAL " ROS1CRUCIAN " 

PLAN. 




MYTHOLOGICAL INTERCHANGE OF "MACROCOSM" AND 
"MICROCOSM." 




No. 10. 



Chart— A. 



Fig.«» ad C viii *6s 




Fig. ii a«f C'Hf 5* *7 



T&flLJITab.lV. 



^ Ftg i2.a«I C v. § 6. 

^ rr< ^ 
Svmma . 660. 



Cabalistic — Astrological and Astronomical. Chaldaic Mysteries. 

N.B.— The references to Nos. and Chapters are to those corresponding in very 
ancient Rosicrucian Tracts or Charts— (adduced here to prove authenticity.) 



No. ii. 



Chart— B. 



Fig g acf c ivbiG. 




Cabalistic (Rosicrucian.) " Natural— Supernatural." " Light— Dark." 
" Dark— Light :" (The Mysteries of "Their Interchange.") 

MB. — The references to Nos. and Chapters are to those corresponding in very 
ancient Rosicrucian Tracts or Charts —(adduced here to prove authenticity.) 



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